International Vaquita Recovery Team Reconvenes

In June 2024 Mexico elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its new President. In the months following her inauguration, Sheinbaum’s administration set out to transform and strengthen fishery management in the Upper Gulf of California, with vaquita conservation as one of its priorities. The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), which had met officially only once in the preceding 6-year term of President López Obrador, was called back into action. A brief initial “get reacquainted” meeting, chaired by Dr. Marina Robles, Undersecretary for Environmental Policy and Natural Resources at SEMARNAT and Alternate President of the Upper Gulf Sustainability Group, was convened on-line in April 2025.

The newly reconstituted committee then met on-line in a series of virtual sessions on 3-4 and 12 June. All of the CIRVA-12 sessions were chaired by the CSG’s Regional Coordinator for Mexico and Latin America, Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, who originally recommended the creation of CIRVA to the Government of Mexico, which subsequently announced establishment of the committee in 1997. He has served as its chair ever since.

The first day (3 June) provided CIRVA members with information from the government agencies involved in vaquita conservation but also from NGOs and representatives of the fishing communities.  This direct connection between CIRVA and the fishing communities in the Upper Gulf signals that the new administration is taking a stronger and more proactive approach than the previous administration. While fishermen have participated in and contributed to CIRVA meetings in the past, this renewed engagement is a welcome development.

The CIRVA-12 report includes a summary of discussions, recommendations, a map showing proposed adjustments to the boundaries of designated protected areas, and several annexes. A special section of the CSG website is being created to provide convenient access to all 12 CIRVA reports as well as reports of ad hoc CIRVA meetings and related documents.

Population-specific Data and Policy Support Can Effectively Mitigate Entanglement: a South African example

 

By Dr. Gwen Penry*

 

The inshore population of Bryde’s whales in South Africa was assessed regionally as Vulnerable (using IUCN criteria to apply to the population that is found in the waters off South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland) owing to its small population size and genetic isolation (Penry et al. 2016). At the time of assessment, a new threat was recognized; fatal entanglement in bottom-mounted fishing gear. Between 2014 and 2020, the South African Whale Disentanglement Network recorded 10 fatal Bryde’s whale entanglements, 6 of which were in gear used for an exploratory octopus fishery. Examination of the carcasses revealed that most had rope through the mouth, indicating that the whales had been feeding at the time of entanglement. Identifying the behaviour leading to such incidents became a research priority. In April 2018 and 2019 scientists deployed suction-cup data loggers on 12 Bryde’s whales in Plettenberg Bay in the hope that they would provide data to explain the entanglement process.

They did! Data from the loggers revealed a novel behaviour: Bryde’s whales chase prey near the seafloor at high speeds (up to 7.4 m/s), followed by upward lunges and mouth opening (Segre et al., 2022). This explained how the rope connecting the octopus traps became lodged in the whale’s mouths, anchoring them to the seafloor.

The original gear configuration for the octopus fishery included a set of traps (~30) spaced 10–20 m apart connected by floating groundlines that arc up into the water column. This design was intended to minimize damage to reefs, facilitate gear retrieval, and allow sufficient slack in the rope for an entangled whale to surface and breathe until disentanglement teams arrived. The same configuration had been used elsewhere (e.g. Australia) without major incident and was therefore not expected to be a fatal entanglement concern in South Africa.

In 2019, while the tagging fieldwork was still underway, two Bryde’s whales died from entanglement in this gear and the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment implemented a temporary moratorium on the fishery and called an urgent meeting with her advisors, fishery representatives and scientists. Several options to mitigate whale-gear interactions were discussed, including seasonal closures. However, because Bryde’s are resident in South African coastal waters, seasonal closures would not help, as they would for migratory species such as humpback and southern right whales. The only viable option whereby the fishery could continue without entanglements was to remove all rope from the water column by using sinking groundlines and acoustic or time-release surface-marker buoy lines. Revised regulations were issued specifying required gear modifications. Replacement of floating line with sinking line is extremely expensive and, because the fishery was still in an exploratory phase, only one of the permit holders was prepared and able to invest in the necessary gear modifications. Since then (late 2019), no entanglements have been reported. The mitigation measures, though provisionally deemed successful, remain to be fully tested if the fishery becomes active at a larger and commercial scale.

 

Lessons learned

This situation highlights the importance of conducting science-based risk assessments before, and indeed while, new fisheries are explored. Although the original octopus gear configuration apparently had not led to fatal whale entanglements elsewhere, the unique behavior of Bryde’s whales in South Africa led to unfortunate deaths in this Vulnerable population.

Fortunately, there were only a few active permit holders (6) at the time, which allowed for manageable discussions and interactions with scientists and decision-makers. New fisheries being explored should begin with a limited number of allocated permits, to allow any issues to be resolved amongst a small group of people, and before large investments are made.

This example shows that location- and species-relevant science can support solutions to at least some bycatch problems. The South African government acted decisively to make data-driven policy changes and are commended for their swift action. It remains to be seen whether the mitigation measures will be effective and allow for large-scale expansion of the octopus fishery. The novel finding that Bryde’s whales use high-speed chases near the seafloor to catch their prey highlights the value of using species-specific, behaviour-based information to support conservation and management recommendations.

 

 

 

1. Penry G, Findlay K, Best P. 2016. A conservation assessment of Balaenoptera edeni. In Child MF, Roxburgh L, Do Linh San E, Raimondo D, Davies-Mostert HT, editors. The Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa.
2. Segre, PS; Di Clemente, J; Kahane-Rapport, SR; Gough, WT; Lombard, A.T; Goldbogen JA; Penry, GS(2022). High-speed chases along the seafloor put Bryde’s whales at risk of entanglement. Conservation Science and Practise, 4(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12646

 

*Dr Gwen Penry
Research Associate – Nelson Mandela University, Institute for Coastal and Marine Research
Research Fellow – University of Pretoria, Mammal Research Institute Whale Unit
IUCN SSC CSG member

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0545-7723

 

Conservation Action for Endangered Narrow-ridged Finless Porpoises in the Republic of Korea

Plan Ocean, an NGO founded in the Republic of Korea by CSG member Dr. Youngran Lee, works in close collaboration with government stakeholders to promote conservation action for narrow-ridged finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis or NRFP). The species has been assessed as Endangered on the Red List (Wang and Reeves 2017), with the greatest threat believed to be bycatch in stow-net fisheries, which causes thousands of mortalities annually (Park et al. 2015, Brownell Jr et al. 2019).

 

Dr. Lee is a veterinary pathologist, specializing in Necropsy. In 2018, during her time working with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), she collaborated with a television production team to make a documentary about the alarming levels of bycatch occurring in fisheries in Korea, and since then has been combining her technical expertise with outreach, education and communication as a means of changing public perception, policy, and motivation to reduce bycatch and protect dolphins.

 

In 2020, Dr. Lee worked with WWF and the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee and Cetacean Specialist Group to draft a motion for the 2020 IUCN World Congress, which was passed as Recommendation 094: Safeguarding the narrow-ridged finless porpoise in the Yellow Sea. From 2021 onward Dr. Lee and colleagues in Plan Ocean have been working to implement this important recommendation through the following actions that address all the elements of the IUCN SSC Assess-Plan-Act-Network-Communicate cycle:

• Collaborating with relevant government agencies to investigate cetacean mortalities and promote cetacean research and conservation.
• Hosting annual national and regional meetings on cetacean research and conservation, leading to the formation of a regional Finless Porpoise Conservation Network (FPCN), with representation from China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan in 2024.
• Appearing on multiple television talk shows (see links below) and other news media to share information about NRFPs, and collaborating on a new three-part documentary that will feature NRFP among Korea’s endangered native species.
• Hosting booths, side-events, and delivering key-note speeches at national and international meetings and conferences, including a side event Collaborating for Conservation: Protecting the Yellow Sea’s Biodiversity and Ecosystems during the Our Ocean Conference in Busan, Korea in June 2025. These events focus on conservation solutions, such as the porpoise excluder devices being tested with some success in the Korean stownet fisheries (Lee et al. 2021, Jung et al. 2024), and regional collaboration to develop and implement measures such as marine protected areas.

 

Participating in the North-East Asia Marine Protected Areas Network (NEAMPAN) Expert Group Meeting, where Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Russian stakeholders will convene to discuss marine mammal conservation around the NEAMPAN area.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Brownell Jr, R. L., R. R. Reeves, A. J. Read, B. D. Smith, P. O. Thomas, K. Ralls, M. Amano, P. Berggren, A. M. Chit, T. Collins, R. Currey, M. L. L. Dolar, T. Genov, R. C. Hobbs, D. Kreb, H. Marsh, M. Zhigang, W. F. Perrin, S. Phay, L. Rojas-Bracho, G. E. Ryan, K. E. W. Shelden, E. Slooten, B. L. Taylor, O. Vidal, W. Ding, T. S. Whitty, and J. Y. Wang. 2019. Bycatch in gillnet fisheries threatens Critically Endangered small cetaceans and other aquatic megafauna. Endangered Species Research 40:285-296.

Jung, J.-M., M.-S. Park, and K.-S. Choi. 2024. A Study on the Catch Losses and Mesh Selectivity Related to the Attachment of Marine Mammal Bycatch Reduction Devices on Midwater Trawl Gear. Fishes 9:391.

Lee, G.-H., D.-H. Song, and H.-Y. Kim. 2021. Characteristics of catch losses in stow nets with finless porpoise excluder devices and a strategy to reduce them. Regional Studies in Marine Science:102147.

Park, K. J., H. Sohn, Y. R. An, H. W. Kim, and D. H. An. 2015. A New Abundance Estimate for the Finless Porpoise Neophocaena asiaeorientalis on the West Coast of Korea: An Indication of Population Decline. Fisheries and aquatic sciences 18:411-416.

Wang , J. Y., and R. R. Reeves. 2017. Neophocaena asiaeorientalis. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Downloaded on 09 September 2019.

 

Links to (Korean language) videos of Dr. Lee’s television appearances.

 

TV

Program: TV Animal Farm

Episode Title: Mass Death of 299 Porpoises: A Time to Coexist with the Narrow-ridged Finless Porpoise

Channel: SBS

Broadcast Date: 2023.03.12

Link:

https://youtu.be/j2yjvHecsec?si=zaO9T2twBZc_YrvU

https://youtu.be/QwEqm1uoabE?feature=shared

 

Dr. Youngran Lee, a member of the IUCN SSC CSG, was interviewed on SBS, one of South Korea’s three major terrestrial television networks, during the program ‘TV Animal Farm’ in the episode titled “Mass Death of 299 Porpoises: A Time to Coexist with the Narrow-ridged Finless Porpoise,” aired on March 12, 2023. She raised awareness about the endangered NRFP and shared conservation measures, such as the use of excluder devices. ‘TV Animal Farm’ is the most famous and long-running animal-focused program in Korea, having aired since 2001.

 

Program: Whales and I (4 episode documentary)

Channel: SBS

Broadcast Date: 2023.11.18 / 11.25 / 12.03 / 12.10

Link:

https://youtu.be/xBSXQMkdedw?si=f7Rt-8vW747OztJT

https://youtu.be/3HJNqU5GSQA?si=Bn8ztq7_z4GkfrVd

 

“Whales and I,” a four-part documentary series that captures the wonder of whales and addresses the threats they face, was broadcast on SBS during November and December 2023. Dr. Youngran Lee participated as an external expert and advisor. Following the positive reception after the broadcast, the series was later adapted into a film and a book.

 

Program: Inviting Seat

Episode Title: Message from the Deaths of Whales

Channel: EBS

Broadcast Date: 2025.01.31

Link:

https://youtu.be/QrvIsqiu9rs?si=NddjRTYCEPRxrSiW

 

Dr. Youngran Lee was interviewed on ‘Inviting Seat’, a talk show aired by EBS, Korea’s only public educational television channel that is nationally televised. In the episode titled “Message from the Deaths of Whales,” aired on January 31, 2025, she highlighted key threats to cetaceans, such as bycatch, pollution, and climate change, and introduced Plan Ocean’s ‘Go Go Go’ project aimed at establishing a rapid response team for marine mammal strandings.

 

Youtube

Channel: IFULUV

Episode Title: “The ocean is also a home for humans” Dr. Youngran Lee, The Founder of marine conservation organization Plan Ocean

Release Date: 2025 04. 17

Link:

https://youtu.be/izmiLveTMwU?si=R5PwghXycz9_rOID

 

Dr. Youngran Lee was interviewed on the YouTube channel IFULUV. IFULUV is a cosmetics company that sells animal- and eco-friendly products and operates a YouTube channel that promotes a lifestyle of coexistence with animals. The channel has over 10,000 subscribers. In the interview, Dr. Lee shared the story behind the founding of Plan Ocean and introduced the organization’s work. She also discussed sustainable fisheries as an important approach to conserving the ocean and coexisting with marine animals, and emphasized the importance of education to encourage public participation.