Vaquita decline even faster than expected

The sixth meeting of the Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita (CIRVA) was held in San Diego, California, USA, on 22 May 2015, immediately before the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee.

CIRVA-6 commended the Government of Mexico for implementing an emergency two-year gillnet ban throughout the vaquita’s range and also acknowledged the major commitments by the President of Mexico to make enforcement more effective through an interagency team led by the Navy.

However, after reviewing new results of the acoustic monitoring program, including the report of an expert panel that had reconvened in April 2015 to consider the acoustic data from 2011-2014, CIRVA-6 concluded that the vaquita population had declined at an even faster rate than estimated previously. In fact, the estimated rate of decline in vaquita abundance from 2013 to 2014 was 42%!

The CIRVA-6 report (here) recommends that the Government of Mexico proceed immediately with the necessary regulatory measures to make the gillnet ban in the northern Gulf of California permanent. It also recommends that the Government maintain its strong commitment to interagency enforcement and include night-time surveillance as part of that effort.