Courts Give Endangered Vaquita Porpoises a Glimmer of Hope
Judges reject Trump administration bid to end Mexican shrimp import ban
A new ruling provides a glimmer of hope for a species that now numbers around 10 animals and could go extinct by 2021, if not sooner. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week rejected the administration’s request to end a court-ordered ban on imports of Mexican shrimp and finfish caught with gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California.
These nets routinely catch and drown vaquitas. They’ve been banned by the Mexican government, but the country has done little to enforce the prohibition, and vaquita continue to die. So the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Animal Welfare Institute last year sued to enforce a provision of the Marine Mammal Protection Act requiring bans on seafood imports that kill marine mammals.
The Court of International Trade responded with a preliminary injunction banning Mexican shrimp as well as other seafood imports caught with gillnets in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez, a biologically rich gulf chronicled by John Steinbeck in The Log from the Sea of Cortez).
But the Trump administration has refused to find these gillnet fisheries violate the law or to support the import ban, instead seeking to overturn the injunction. Lawyers with the National Marine Fisheries Service asked both the trade court and appeals court to end the ban — and both rejected those bids.
That’s a critical life-line for the vaquita, but more is needed to ensure their future. These adorable gray porpoises — which are about the size of humans, with mascara-like shading around their eyes — may soon pass the point of surviving.
The Mexican government has refused to enforce its own restrictions on gillnets that are also used to illegally catch endangered totoaba, a fish killed for its swim bladder, which is used in Chinese medicine and illegally exported through criminal syndicates.
Gillnets are underwater walls of death that kill and injure many marine species, particularly marine mammals that die by drowning. The vaquita has inherent value and should not follow the fate of the baiji porpoise, which has been driven to extinction in China by fishing gear.
Whatever the vaquita’s fate may be, federal laws that protect species from declining toward extinction are more important than ever. And until we have an administration that recognizes their importance, it’s crucial for the courts to stand up for biological diversity.
Sarah Uhlemann is international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
