Wildlife Below Water
By: Defenders Of Wildlife
Tags: Oceans, Wildlife, Wild Features, Environment, Conservation

Defenders is dedicated to restoring natural springs and protecting coastal habitat for manatees, establishing refuges and sanctuaries that keep them safe from collisions with speeding boats. Our ongoing work to improve protections for manatees in Kings Bay in Crystal River is a primary example of this work. We are also working with government agencies, power companies and other organizations to create a plan to transition manatees from artificial sources of warm water.

Vaquita

The world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise is literally on its last fins. According to the latest population estimate by the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) there are fewer than 30 vaquitas left in the Upper Gulf of California, the only place on Earth where they are found.

The greatest threat to the remaining vaquita is incidental death caused by fishing gear. Vaquitas are known to die in gillnets set for sharks, rays, mackerels and chano, as well as in illegal and occasionally permitted gillnet sets for an endangered fish called totoaba. They are also killed by commercial shrimp trawlers. Because there are so few vaquita left and they are confined to such a small area, they may also be vulnerable to climate change, which could affect food availability or habitat conditions in the Gulf of California.

In 2018, Mexico’s Environment Ministry published the expansion of the refuge area of the vaquita that we requested earlier this year. During the vaquita population monitoring that was done for the failed plan to capture vaquitas last year, scientists (CIRVA) discovered that the last remaining vaquitas were concentrating in a small area that was partly outside of the original refuge area. Thus, Defenders along with Greenpeace and Teyeliz drafted a proposal to expand the area and we presented it to the Environment Minister this year who accepted the proposal and announced it. The new President and Environment Minister which began their administration in December have both said they are siding with the fishermen and would lift the fishery ban. Without any guarantee that the totoaba illegal fishing will be stopped or at least decreased, the renewed fisheries will be the end of the vaquita.

Right Whales

There isn’t often much good news to share when it comes to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, but so far this year, seven newborn calves have been spotted off the coasts of Georgia and Florida. The news could not come at a more critical time — in 2018, for the first time since surveys began nearly 30 years ago, not a single calf was sighted. In a species numbering no more than 411 surviving individuals, each right whale is critical to the survival of the species and each new calf a cause for celebration.

North Atlantic right whales are one of the most endangered of all large whale species. Although originally decimated by historical overexploitation by the whaling industry through the 1930s, in recent decades other human-caused threats such as vessel collisions and entanglements in fishing gear have prevented the species’ recovery. Indeed, because of their slow swimming speed and tendency to swim near the surface of the water in coastal areas, the species became known to early whalers as the “right” whale to hunt. Although whaling no longer threatens its survival, these same attributes make the right whale especially vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in the vertical buoy lines of fixed fishing gear, such as gillnets and lobster and crab traps and pots.

At the national level, Defenders of Wildlife and its conservation allies are advocating to federal agencies, to Congress, and to the courts to reduce the risks of entanglement and vessel collisions, as well as to combat emerging threats such as seismic blasting for offshore oil and gas exploration.