Vaquita warns us about sharks: lessons for the ocean’s future

0:00 Picture this an entire species. The Vaquita, a small porus in the Gulf of California is on the verge of disappearing forever. Fewer than 20. Individuals remain. And while this tragedy unfolds, it holds up a mirror to another unfolding crisis. The decline of sharks across our oceans. So what if the vaquitas fate isn't just their story? It's a glimpse into our own future. We're gonna be talking about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the ocean, and what you could do to live for better ocean by taking action.

0:43 Today I'm diving into a powerful article by marine biologist and friend and writer, Melissa Christina Marquez. She wrote an article in Forbes, which explores what the vaquitas decline warns us about sharks and the lesson is stark. It's urgent and deeply personal because when ecosystems unravel, we feel the impact. If you want to find out the whole article, you can find out by just clicking the description if you're watching this on YouTube or in the show notes because the article will be there from Forbes. So I'll be sure to post that. 'cause I always wanna make sure that the people who write the articles get the credit and get read, not just listen to me like sp on about the article. Very much go to the article and read it because not only is Melissa a great writer, but the story is very important.

1:27 So I've talked about the Vaquita a number of times on this podcast, but I'm gonna give essentially a description of what's going on. So the Vaquita is probably the most endangered marine mammal in the world. living in only one part of Mexico's upper Gulf of California or Sea of Cortez is also known as. Now, its population has plummeted due to gillnet entanglement in illegal fisheries targeting another species, the toto alba. And this fish is a large fish that is huge and is very easily to consume. but it's also used in Asian countries for specific medicinal purposes, which hasn't been actually proven in any kind of medicinal scientific journals or scientific studies. It's just a cultural thing.

2:07 And so this fish, this total alba is something that a lot of people want. And so to be able to get it, they have to use gill nets to be able to catch it or that's how they use it to be able to catch it. And then the vaquita actually gets stuck within the gill nets, which happens to a lot of marine mammals, not just the Vaquita, but in this case, the Vaquita has been, you know, a huge part of this bycatch within the fisheries, which is catch that you don't intend to catch within a specific gear, but you catch it anyway. And it can actually cause a lot of problems for that population, which it has for this poor vaquita. Now vaquita is an elusive animal, so it's very difficult to monitor. So when I say, you know, there's 20 individuals left, there's probably actually less. Last estimate that I saw it was probably 10.

2:49 And so there's even less now, and it's very difficult to find out if they've actually grown in population or less in a population. We just know that we don't see them as much as we used to. So there's been, like awareness campaigns and protective measures put in place. Unfortunately the efforts came too late. Like even the Gulf of the government of Mexico put in navy ships to help take away the threat of gill nets. We even had the sea shepherd conservation organization come in and have their own boats to monitor for gill net use. The problem was, is you're bordering these poor fishing villages who know they can get money for these fish. When some of them put out, not all of them, of course, when they put out their gill ness and they catch these fish, they get a lot of money for it. Then what happened is apparently organized crime got involved and that makes it even more complex to stop this problem because once organized crime gets involved, especially within a country like Mexico, you get cartels involved.

3:40 It becomes a very difficult thing to stop. And so unfortunately, that bycatch from the vaquita just continues to continue, continue. And Eventually what's gonna happen is, you know, people are like, it's probably too late for the vaquita. We don't wanna lose hope. I say this with a caveat, we never wanna lose hope. We always want to bring them back from the brink. But to be in a realistic framework and mindset. It's probably too late for the vaquita. However, there are a lot of organizations, a lot of individuals that are working to stop that from happening. So I don't want to dismiss their efforts and their ongoing efforts to do so. But there is a very big problem with the vaquita and there is a chance that we might lose the vaquita to extinction because of us. It's another reason. It's because of us.

4:22 But the Vaquita also stands as a symbol for what happens when conservation is delayed. And when we don't act in time or when we don't act with enough effort, we get problems coming in and stemming in from inaction, which happens a lot within conservation. By the time, sometimes we find out about a particular decline in a particular species or in a habitat. Sometimes it's already too late to bring in action. Or some people will just be like, well, we're not gonna bring in action. ' cause it takes a lot of times because when humans are involved, there's usually money involved. There's usually a reason, like it's probably supporting something may be a community or something else. And you need to really make sure that you conservation on point, but it's also working properly with local communities.

5:04 Now, here's where sharks come in, because you're probably like, Andrew, you're talking about marine mammals. How is this involved with sharks? Well, the warning for sharks, so the same forces that threaten Vaquitas, which is bycatch, overfishing and weak enforcement are pushing sharks towards collapse. So as an example, you see a lot of people along coastal villages. In Africa that are very much remote and you don't really see what's happening and you start to see them fish for guitar fish or wedge fish that I learned in our podcast on Beyond Jaws with David Ebert. We covered a symposium for about a month that was happening online where we talked how a lot of fishing nations, a lot of fishing communities will fish for sharks because that's what they eat and they need to survive and they need to sell the meat for food because they need to survive.

5:45 Without identifying those communities and working with those communities to understand why they eat what they eat, and maybe find different ways for them to make money, or for them to consume fish of different sorts, it takes a long time to get in there. Having that threat of bycatch, overfishing and weak enforcement and the lack of knowledge of the customs and understanding of the ways of each local community, which are unique within each ones, makes it very difficult to fish. Now, it's not just local communities that are giving problems that eat sharks. There's a lot of larger corporations that run boats that are sort of commercial type of trawlers or long liners and that they just take the shark meat, cut it up.

6:28 When they come in for inspection, you won't see that the sharks you can't recognize. Sometimes it looks like tuna and so you just don't know what it is. It could be sharp, but you have no idea. So the fact is, is sharks are declining because of fisheries. When you look at most of the estimates of sharks dying, it's because of overfishing. It's because of weak enforcements. It's because of bycatch, and sharks are critical top predators that regulate ecosystems. They regulate the food web. Their decline has cascading effects. So altering the food web and destabilizing marine life is not a good thing for a marine ecosystem. The author Melissa Marquez, she draws a direct line like inaction that doom. The vaquitas could also doom sharks if we wait too long. So, for example, we covered a story here on the podcast through Monga Bay.

7:12 We had Monga Bay. Come on. We talked about a huge article that actually made it to. Legislation like the legislative body in Brazil. Not only schools but public sector. So nursing homes or older age living homes, I guess is what you call them, as well as prisons. Were buying shark meat to serve at regular meals. So, you know, not only is it not good for the individuals who are eating it, because there's a lot of arsenic, there's a lot of mercury within sharks. And so eating that on a regular basis could harm their health. But it's also, there's no management at con like what type of shark? we noticed that the article identified there were angel sharks within there that are endangered. And so there were a lot of problems with these types of animals that were being caught and they weren't being managed and they weren't being counted and they weren't being monitored, and they weren't being regulated, and they could just get any type of shark and that's gonna decrease the populations over time.

8:00 Especially feeding all these public sector works that need this type of food or that needs food and they're using in the wrong kind of style of food. So here's the thing, there's a problem of acting too late. So, you know, conservation often follows crisis and not prevention. We're not going after it at the beginning or understanding that there could be specific problems with this. We're not monitoring sharks on a regular basis. We're only monitoring on a reactive approach, not a proactive approach. And then the article also warns that by the time the laws are tightened or enforcement strengthens. Populations may already be beyond recovery, just like the vaquita. So the Vaquita teaches us to be proactive. Early measures and not reactionary ones are the only way to avoid irreversible losses.

8:43 So getting out ahead of it. So looking at your coastline as a government or as an area local community being like. What do we have in here? Let's just take an inventory of what do we have, what do we have a lot of, what do we not see a lot of? And then do the management from there. Sometimes you can have local scientists or you know, partner up with larger organizations or even smaller ones to help you with that. And I think that's a really important one. And then the call to change is governments and industries must invest in monitoring, regulation and enforcement. before sharks reach like the vaquita, like levels of decline. So the public support, consumer choices and pressure on decision makers are key. This is where you come in. If you like sharks. A lot of people do.

9:24 We like watching shark documentaries. We like watching our shark movies like shark, NATO and stuff like that because we like learning about sharks. We all want to know about sharks. It's something that we love to hate, but we also love them as well. There's a lot more people who love sharks and understand their importance, but they don't know how to protect them. That goes to, even here in Canada, you know, voting for people who will vote for pro-environment type of ecosystem health, right? Whether they're a business person, a lawyer, and economist. You have to talk to them about what's important to you, and if the ocean's important. I don't care if you live in Ontario. I don't care if you live in the Midwest and in the US or in England or in Ireland or Scotland or anywhere in Europe. If you live inland or along the coast, the ocean is important to all of us, and it's important for those bodies that are in charge of putting in regulations to be able to do that.

10:11 'cause even if you live in a country where there's a coast, I have three coasts. I have the longest coast in the world. Just because my MP is in Burlington, Ontario, where I live doesn't mean that it's not important for them to know about what's going on along the coastlines. That's very important. The story hits me, not only as a marine biologist, but as a person. Like the Vaquita is not just a porus, it's a warning sign. It's something that hits me and be like, we could lose this species because of inaction. Right? Not taking the proper steps, not saying, Hey, you know what, we need to actually do something. It's a conservation loss. It's a huge, huge loss, and I want you to think of it this way. The ocean is like a safety net. Right, that it protects humanity.

10:51 You know, it gives us food, oxygen. Every second breath goes to our breathing, our oxygen levels, climate stability. Every time species like slips through the cracks, the net weakens and the vaquitas near extinction tells us that waiting is deadly. If we wait and we, you know, do inaction. It's not gonna help us. This is where it gets personal for you. If sharks collapse, seafood industries change, you may like the change. You may not like the change. Coral reefs decline and coastal communities lose natural protection because they don't have coral reefs, right? It's not just about the ocean like out there. It's about your dinner plate. It's about your beach vacation. It's about your storm protection.

11:32 It's about your children's inheritance of a stable planet. This is where it all counts. Having a loss like sharks or shark species is going to be a terrible loss. Now, there are some organizations and lots of researchers and lots of governments who are doing the right thing. If you look at the emergence of great white sharks in certain areas or whales in other areas, we are seeing conservation successes. The manatee down in South Florida was a conservation success up until recently. Things ebb and flow, but action actually helps putting together monitoring plans actually help putting species on the endangered species list or on a list where they can't be traded internationally helps protect them and to make sure that their stocks remain stable or at least get to a point where they could be stable in and of itself.

12:15 So the fate of the key to, it's heartbreaking. There's no doubt about that, but it's a story that can serve as a turning point if we actually listen. Sharks are the next test. We are seeing a huge decline. We can't just keep saying, Hey, there are 200 million estimate, 200 million sharks die every year. ' cause eventually we're gonna run out. There's a tipping point. And if we wait until the numbers are as low as the vaquita is, or we will act like, people are like, well, how come there's not still time where people ask like, why didn't you do anything when we had the time before? So this is a big step for us, like this is the way you need to think about the ocean is don't wait till it's too late. Be proactive as a voter, as somebody who lives in a democratic society. And you have that say with the government, make sure there's regulation and make sure you support research.

12:56 Make sure you speak to scientists who are out there talking on a level like I am, or even bigger or even smaller. These are the people who see these trends all the time and are out there trying to make you aware of the good and the bad that's out there. So make sure you listen to them and I think that's really important. So that's it for today's episode. I want it to be a little bit of a quicker one. And I wanna thank you so much for listening to this episode of How to Protect the Ocean If you want to comment, you can do so in the YouTube comments or down below. If you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app like just the audio version, you can go to Instagram and DM me at How to Protect the Ocean. Or you can go to speak up for blue.com/contact, fill out the form that goes right to my personal email.

13:37 I'd be happy to chat with you from there. I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. From the True Nord, strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time in Happy Conservation.