Chasing Down The Muse: Reversing the course of species extinction

“The last fallen mahogany would lie perceptibly on the landscape, and the last black rhino would be obvious in its loneliness, but a marine species may disappear beneath the waves unobserved and the sea would seem to roll on the same as always.”

—– G. Carleton Ray in “Biodiversity”

National Academy Press, 1988

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Last week I had the honor of attending the Conservation Science Symposium in Loreto, BCS, sponsored by the Ocean Foundation and a consortium of charitable foundations.

Researchers, scientists and resource managers from the United States and Mexico joined local community members in a dialog about conservation in the Gulf of California and Baja.

For the most part, Baja California is a rugged and arid desert region with mountain ranges that separate the Pacific Coast from the eastern Sea of Cortez. There are small eco-systems within the overall peninsula that affect fisheries, agriculture and the availability of water.

The symposium was broken into multiple tracks with presentations ranging from “Protected Areas and Biodiversity” to “Species of Concern.” Overarching was a discussion of community involvement, government interaction and how to manage conservation for the most effective outcomes — both to habitat and to human populations.

The conversations begun were lively. Everyone is a stake holder — whether a developer who wants to grade down a mountain for a real estate development (and disrupt and/or destroy a watershed in the process) or a fishermen, whose entire livelihood is based on the bounty of the sea. In many ways, it is only now, in this age of rapid and constant information exchange, that we become increasingly aware of the effects of our actions and activities.

In the northern Gulf of California, there is small dolphin, the Vaquita, that has been seen by few human beings. It is the smallest — less than 5 feet long, with calves the size of a loaf of bread — and rarest cetacean on earth. It is estimated that less than 200 remain. When they are seen, they are tangled in the shrimp fishermen’s gill nets and drowned — adults, juveniles and newborns.

Vaquita, or “The Desert Porpoise,” came into a small spotlight after a 2006 expedition led by Bob Pitman to search for the Baiji dolphin on the Yangtze River in China. After two months of searching, not one dolphin was spotted, nor had the local population any. The Baiji had become extinct because of human activities and population expansion. Extinct — as in no more, never again, gone forever.

The situation in China and the upper regions of the Gulf of California are similar. The men who fish the region know no other trade, nor are there opportunities for change. They do what they know to do to feed their families. How to convince a man who needs to eat that his activities are killing off a small sea mammal?

Several approaches have been developed and are being simultaneously tried. Education about the plight of the Vaquita is the keystone.

A protected zone — a no-take area — was established with the northern waters around the known Vaquita habitat. Alternatives to gillnet fishing are being explored. The Mexican government, along with several NGOs, developed a plan that either bought out fishing permits or “rented” them.

If all the programs fail, then the Vaquita — like the Baiji — will no longer swim in the Sea of Cortez.

It did not go unnoticed by the attendees at the Conservation Symposium that the U.S. administration voted not to list the bluefin tuna as an endangered species. The rationale was that no one could prove that, without protection, the tuna would disappear.

There were cheers from the fishing industry, where bluefin can sell in the Japanese market for up to $400,000. There were wails from those whose research has followed the majestic tuna’s decline.

Between 1970 and 1992, the eastern Atlantic’s stocks declined significantly.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classified the fish as a species of concern. The bluefin’s fate now lies in the hands of international management, which has high levels of infighting and insufficient oversight.

Which brings the conversation full circle to governance. How do we choose what to protect, be it a watershed, a desert porpoise, a wolf or a migrating swan? And when we collectively decide, how do we implement agreed upon standards to “police” those protections, whom do we choose to enforce them, and how do we fund the process?

The Conservation Science Symposium opened a dialog that is valuable to continue outside the confines of a conference. Since humans appear to be the cause of any/all extinctions of species since we began our walk upon the planet, it is up to us to change that course.

CATHARINE COOPER loves wild places. She can be reached at [email protected].