Book Review: Vaquita - Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez

About ten years ago or so, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums launched SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction), aimed at integrating zoo-based conservation with research and protection methods in the wild.  Ten programs were chosen to kickstart the project, representing several well-known species, such as the black rhinoceros and sea turtles.  Also among them - and the most endangered of all - was a very little known species of porpoise, never seen in captivity.  This was the vaquita.

Found only in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, the vaquita (Spanish for "little cow") is the world's smallest species of cetacean (whale, dolphin, porpoise).  It is also the most endangered.  Its decline is perhaps made all the more tragic because of the fact that it's unintentional.  No one is deliberately setting out to harm the little porpoises, but they are dying all the same, entangled in illegal fishing nets strung across the sea in pursuit of another endangered species, a fish called the totoaba.  We know where the vaquita lives.  We know what is threatening it.  We know how to save it.  And yet, no positive change seems possible, and the numbers continue to decline.

When I first learned of the vaquita (AZA kicked off SAFE by drumming up financial support for conversation programs for this species - my zoo, which has zero marine mammals, still contributed what we could), I was shocked that I'd never heard of it before.  I shouldn't be surprised, however - it turns out, even a lot of the folks living along the shores of its sea have never heard of it.  Some of those who have think it's mythical.  Others hate it as an impediment to financial progress.  If there was ever a species in need of a good storyteller, it was this one.

The vaquita found its champion in science writer Brooke Bessesen, who wrote Vaquita - Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez.  It's an absolutely excellent book which covers history of this little porpoise (unknown to science until fairly recently), its decline, and the various efforts made to save it.  The author recounts her frequent voyages to the region, where she interviews scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and other local people to try to weave together the story of the cetacean.  She meets researchers who are working on methods to monitor the populations of an animal that it almost impossible to see in its native habitat, as well as the volunteer activists ships which cruise the range of the vaquita, trying to protect the few that remain.  Fair warning, as is often the case when documenting the saga of a critically endangered species, this book can get quite sad at many points.  This was especially driven home to me because I experienced Bessesen's writing not in print but as an audiobook.  The sorrow and anguish at each setback, each porpoise lost was painfully driven home in the narrator's voice.

A decent section of the book is devoted to one of the more controversial aspects of the vaquita conservation plan - where AZA came in.  A plan had been drawn to round up the last survivors and bring them under human care to protect them from fishing nets, a plan which (as it always has, such as in the case of the California condor), was starkly controversial.  I really applaud Bessesen's analysis of the subject, which was rational and logical, weighing the risks (and there were many) of both trying to capture vaquitas and bring them into captivity, versus leaving them be and watching more drowned bodies wash ashore.  Conservation issues are so often portrayed as black and white, and we often don't dig much deeper than acknowledging that we should protect endangered species, that we seldom really dive into discussions (let alone detailed, nuanced ones) of how we should protect them.

This is not a feel-good story, so consider yourself forewarned, any particularly tender-hearted readers.  In the book, you get the sense that some folks - and not just illegal fishermen - just can't wait for the species to go extinct.  Then, it'll be over and done with.  We'll be spared scenes like the author describes of impossibly tiny porpoises being laid out on necropsy tables, in perfect condition up until the moment that they drowned in gill nets.  Looking away is easy and comfortable, which I suppose is why so many people do it.  The real challenge is doing what Bessesen, and the conservation heroes that she covers in her book, do - face the prospect of an oncoming extinction, one that seems inevitable, and know that, if it does happen, they're at least doing everything that they can to prevent it.

Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez at Amazon.com