Meet the crew saving the world's most endangered marine life off the coast of Mexico

euronews (in English)

In partnership with Media City, Qatar

Transcript

00:00 Over the last four decades we've lost 90% of the big animals from the ocean.

00:07 In the last 10 years we've lost one third of the coral reef from bleaching.

00:12 We're in the midst of a global biodiversity extinction.

00:14 There is no permission for fishing here.

00:19 Fisheries across the world are either overfished or at full capacity.

00:24 We keep putting more boats in the water but we cannot extract any more fish out of the

00:29 ocean.

00:30 One in four fish is caught illegally.

00:33 A lot of seaship work has been on the high seas.

00:35 We've chased trawlers through long distances.

00:39 This is very much front line.

00:41 It's really making a difference.

00:43 You have to be visible.

00:44 You've got to be out there at the cold place actually working.

00:47 Sea Shepherd is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the conservation of marine wildlife.

01:06 We're here on the Seahorse, Sea Shepherd's newest ship that we're using on operational

01:10 campaign Milagro in the Sea of Cortez.

01:14 This operation is primarily about trying to protect the world's rarest marine mammal,

01:21 the vaquita porpoise.

01:24 Vaquitas are the smallest cetacean porpoise that's endemic to the upper Gulf of California.

01:30 You cannot find them anywhere else in the world.

01:33 I always describe them to people as a small dolphin but they don't have the characteristic

01:39 beak of a dolphin so their head is more round.

01:42 They measure one metre and a half and they have black marks around their eyes and their

01:47 mouth.

01:48 They have the nickname 'Handout of the Sea'.

01:55 The vaquita is sometimes accidentally caught, particularly in poachers' nets.

02:01 The fish that the poachers are targeting is exactly the same size as a small vaquita.

02:07 So the poachers often accidentally catch vaquita.

02:11 Poachers really target totoaba but I've seen many other animals entangled in these totoaba

02:16 nets.

02:17 I've seen tons of whales, sharks, turtles, sea lions, dolphins and whales entangled.

02:25 They're really deadly, the big mesh size nets.

02:32 The totoaba is a big fish that is endemic to the Gulf.

02:36 It was the first fish species to be on the IUCN threatened and endangered list so it

02:43 is illegal to catch totoaba.

02:46 Poachers will go for totoaba to sell their swim bladder in the black market.

02:53 The totoaba swim bladder has a high value.

02:57 The price per weight is higher than gold.

03:09 For a while the campaign was crazy.

03:11 There was a lot of poaching.

03:13 We pulled up literally thousands of nets.

03:16 The poachers, the nets were very expensive so they didn't like people coming and pulling

03:20 up their nets.

03:21 We had a lot of conflict.

03:22 We had people throwing petrol bombs at the ships.

03:23 We had poachers trying to board the ships.

03:24 There was a lot of gunfire.

03:34 Poachers keep throwing stones but the harm is here.

03:38 Over time, since we've been here, that conflict is going down.

03:43 Nowadays we find the poachers very quickly.

03:47 It's much more difficult for them to undertake their activities without being discovered.

03:53 The ghost nets is a huge issue.

03:55 We've literally pulled thousands of them out of here.

03:59 The problem is they're made of plastic and the plastic stays forever and they just keep

04:04 catching fish forever unless you find them and pull them out.

04:10 The reason why the vaquita are still alive is because what we've done here, all the nets,

04:19 all the legal fishing gear that we have retrieved is what has really made a change.

04:27 I'm absolutely convinced if we weren't here there would be no vaquita left.

04:31 All the vaquita would be dead.

04:32 So the fact that there's still some remaining vaquita I think is a result of this operation

04:36 we've had here.

04:42 The Seashipper crews are just incredible.

04:44 They're great global citizens.

04:45 They have very strong ethical values around conservation.

04:50 The crews of the ships are more and more Mexican crewed and we're trying to get the Mexican

04:55 run operation by Seashipper Mexico.

05:01 I've been so lucky that I've seen the most incredible wildlife.

05:05 I want my grandchildren to be able to see vaquita, to be able to see coral reefs and

05:11 the beauty of the marine ecosystems and marine wildlife.

05:17 Unfortunately there's many species that are in the break of extinction or they're really

05:24 threatened.

05:25 This is why I'm still fighting.

05:30 I'm fighting for the future of the vaquita.

05:35 This is work that we have to keep doing.

05:38 It's what the world needs right now.

05:42 Such an important campaign.

05:43 The world is looking at this campaign because the vaquita is the most threatened marine

05:47 mammal and the totoaba is the most threatened marine fish.

05:50 It's a challenging campaign but a very important one.

05:52 [Music]

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