When Juan Zapata can spare time from sea lion disentanglements with Pesca ABC & making San Felipe cleaner (leading daily trash patrols all over town including top of El Machorro hill) & healthier (fitness & fight sport training & Juanisimo's Nutribar), he helps with CAT's Facebook page 🔥

San Felipe mayor & Baja state governor met with @SEMARNAT_mx leadership in Mexicali in collaboration towards a long-term sustainable development plan to protect the environment & improve people's quality of life through productive diversification. x.com/i/status/20...

While you were sleeping... three women are rowing across 2,800 miles of Pacific Ocean in a boat named Vaquita 💪💪💪💪💪💪 rowforlifepacific.org.uk/the-challenge

Viko's #vaquita book blends journalism & essay, based on interviews & scientific, historical & academic documents. It addresses the species' characteristics as well as the immense challenge facing the survival of this endemic porpoise of Mexico's Upper Gulf of California.

Your best life begins each morning

The women of Pesca ABC & Pronatura Noroeste put their best fish forward at yesterday's first San Felipe Curvina Festival - well done! 🤝

San Felipe mayor Jose Dagnino urges President Sheinbaum to support the new municipality in solving its key challenge: impact of federal protection measures for endangered endemic species #vaquita & totoaba of the Upper Gulf "a region of great environmental value for the country"

"The future is in the hands of those who explore... & from all the beauty they discover while crossing perpetually receding frontiers, they develop for nature & for humankind an infinite love" -Jacques Cousteau San Felipe community monitors searching for #vaquitas this morning

1/2 Hong Kong makes first publicly reported seizure anywhere in the world this year (including Mexico) of #totoaba swim bladders, hidden in a shipment of frozen fish fillets bound for Vietnam. @ernesto_mendez sources say poaching is rampant south of San Felipe #vaquita habitat. x.com/i/status/20...

Our friend & author Viko Rodriguez has been invited by @CONANP_mx to present a reading from his book, Odisea for the #Vaquita. His 254 page book in Spanish can be downloaded from Baja state government at the link below as a 2025 State Literature prize winner.

Today's #WorldSeaTurtleDay with good news from San Felipe! An adult female green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) reported by tourists entangled in a fishing net on Campo 1 beach was freed, checked, tagged & released by technician from local sea turtle protection group & authorities

Polydactyly (a tiny extra flipper nubbin for a total of 6 digits) is a thing in #vaquita porpoises, probably related to very small population size. Marked with red arrow in 1966 X-rays, they were subsequently lost from the female's skeleton & so aren't captured in the 3D digital database.

The porpoise of life is a life of porpoise

It's good that only a 30 meter portion of a very old ghost net was found June 4 as part of World Environment Day in San Felipe. Main eentanglement risk to #vaquita porpoise remains fishers actively using gillnets in the Vaquita Refuge from fall to spring, every good day & night. x.com/i/status/20...

Our partners @pescaabc @PronaturaNoroes will be at San Felipe's first Curvina Food Festival June 20, cooking the best seafood in town: Hook & line 🎣 #Vaquita-safe 🐬 Humane ikejima fish kill 🪡 Traceable blockchain provenance 🫆 Sanitary icing all the way from boat to plant 🧊 x.com/i/status/20...

Today 33d anniversary of Upper Gulf of California & Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve. 1993 #vaquita abundance estimate: 224. It doubled in 1997 when experts found more porpoises near San Felipe, but downhill 📉 ever since from banned gillnets, visible onboard poster pangas

At yesterday's panel on the Upper Gulf of California at @CONANP_mx World Oceans Day Festival led by @PronaturaNoroes & @cedo_mex, women leaders from San Felipe & Santa Clara emphasized that effective solutions to conservation challenges depend on direct community participation.

2026 theme of today's UN Oceans Day is Reimagine. Here's a story from last June #UNOC3 with one of @pescaabc @PronaturaNoroes hook & line fishers, reimagining that "if we respect, we will surely see a San Felipe like the one 20 years ago, full of fish in the sea" And #vaquitas.

Getting set for dawn patrol aboard @PronaturaNoroes @cedo_mex community observer boat Koipai Yuxa - practice makes perfect, searching for rare & elusive little #vaquita porpoises

1/2 Part of the #vaquita porpoise recovery solution is developing alternative livelihoods to gillnet fishing. Formation of Mexico's 7th Local Investment Promotion Committee, coordinated by @SE_mx with @SEMARNAT_mx, municipal govt, & business & academic leaders, is a major step! x.com/Candelaria_...

June 5 & every day for us is International Day against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. Our sales of traceable gillnet-free humanely dispatched fish are growing 📈 @pescaabc @PronaturaNoroes Sustainable hook & line fishing continues in summer slow season 🌡️

Pesca ABC @pescaabc annual report for 2025 released on its 3 workstreams: sustainable fisheries; community science & species monitoring; advocacy & awareness. This group has become a major force for marine conservation in San Felipe since we began supporting them in 2020 💪🎣🐬

The vaquita porpoise, endemic of Mexico’s Gulf of California, has been on the road to extinction for decades. Ongoing research, collaboration with local fishing communities and among advocates in both the U.S. and Mexico promise a change to its story.

Yesterday for San Felipe's Seafarer & Navy Day celebrations, our partners' citizen marine science boat Koipai Yu-Xa participated with other vessels in the casting of flower wreaths at sea for lost souls 💐

Shoutout to all those supporting the recently concluded #vaquita porpoise community observers training exercise! @CONANP_mx @SEMAR_mx @PROFEPA_MX @SeaShepherdSSCS @PronaturaNoroes @cedo_mex @pescaabc @FondoMexicano

If there's any trash left to clean up after this crew blitzed it this month!

Our partners @pescaabc & @PronaturaNoroes among the organizing groups for volunteer beach cleanups in San Felipe & Santa Clara June 5 👏

370 thank you's to Bryony & Rosy support for @porpoiseorg #vaquita! "We found it quite hard talking to strangers & no-one had heard of them, so Bryony came up with: Imagine the smallest dolphin you've ever seen with panda eyes & black lipstick–then you’ve got yourself a vaquita"

1/2 More bad news from @ernesto_mendez @Excelsior - @Conapesca has not operationalized @SEMAR_mx satellite monitoring system SISLEM for fishing skiffs in #vaquita habitat😑, despite Mexico's @CITES report last summer that information is already being received through the system. x.com/CetaceanAct...

Cancelled Late Show comedian Stephen Colbert included our partner @NMMForg National Marine Mammal Foundation in his final monologue 😃

.@Conapesca invites the public to name their #vaquita porpoise character, "newest member of the Conapesca family," promising "very soon it will become part of communications to share relevant information for the fishing sector." Top suggestion so far is Esperanza (Hope). x.com/Conapesca/s...

New paper - 120 San Felipeans randomly surveyed in May 2021: 69% claimed some involvement in fishing industry & awareness of gillnet ban & #vaquita protections. Although 41% said their fishing unchanged, 78% said ban affected their finances, 56% their families, & 46% their work.

Like, we've inspected the fishermen's' panga & informed them that the gillnet they have aboard is illegal?

Tap tap - is this thing on? 📡 @ernesto_mendez reports that the Navy claimed no documents on monitoring results of satellite systems required for pangas in #vaquita habitat, that device functionality isn't checked upon departure, & some fishers say they are "only for decoration"

"A Mexican scientist will receive special training from Dr. Barbara Taylor to lead #vaquita observation efforts. If porpoises are sighted, pangas will be used to approach for photos for the individual dorsal fin ID database, & drones flown to attempt videos to calculate body length & condition."

1/2 The gang's all here! Expert training to build local capacity in San Felipe for #vaquita porpoise visual surveys began yesterday, alongside this month's beginning of @CONANP_mx annual acoustic monitoring program & renewal of eDNA research started in 2022 by @taniavaldiviac ⬇️

Science-based conservation action for Mexico's #vaquita porpoise Infographic in @UHumanitas art, education & culture magazine Capitel x.com/mroblesg/st...

this weekend hopefully awaiting emergence of the first hydrophone recordings of #vaquita porpoise ultrasonic vocalizations of 2026, we're keeping cool immersed in Dutch techno artist Deniro's eponymous track from his endangered species Saola EP youtu.be/8iAkxB2RWFI?...

Exciting news for the future of sustainable fishing in #vaquita habitat in the Upper Gulf of California! Congratulations @majoespinosa79 on your captaincy at the helm of @IMIPASmex, Mexico's scientific fisheries regulator & developer of fishing gear alternatives to gillnets x.com/i/status/20...

First indication by PROFEPA that large-mesh #totoaba nets (the riskiest type of gillnet for #vaquita porpoise entanglement) may have been seized in the Upper Gulf this spring spawning season, which is already over.

1000 thank you's to Hannah & her other #Vaquita Friends of Vienna!

1/2 Night fishing is prohibited in #Vaquita Refuge now & in draft text of modified gillnet ban in CIRVA 13 report. @SeaShepherdSSCS hourly boat counts (which can't cover full VR) over last spring tide had much higher numbers than last year, which was also a non-windy spring tide

San Felipe historian Ernesto Sosa Rocha records memories of Nato Valencia: "I came in 1923 with a group of Guaymas fishermen for #totoaba, the boat's propeller killed enough for us, the spawning fish were thick. We threw away 70-80 kg fish, Chinese bought only the swim bladder."

2025 annual report of @PronaturaNoroes highlights hope for saving the planet's most threatened marine mammal the #vaquita porpoise. Apparently steep population decline has been halted, & 18 San Felipe youth were trained towards becoming a skilled community citizen science group

Happy Mother's Day to #vaquita porpoise Frida, photographed by drone pilot Fabián Rodríguez González @FabianRguez94 during the September 2025 survey - with her yearling calf, & experts think possibly pregnant. Hope the community observer team spots you again later this month!🙏

Temporary fencing on preferred stretches of Santa Clara beaches by @PronaturaNoroes protects spawning Gulf grunion. At high tide females come out of the water to lay eggs while males stir vigorously around them. Sand stains silver, hence the fish's name pejerrey (silverside).

First Participatory Environmental Monitoring Committee in #vaquita porpoise habitat has been formed in San Felipe by @PROFEPA_Mx 👏 x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

Several recent meetings in San Felipe - one between the three levels of government (town, state & federal) and two more with fisher leaders. Before the 2020 gillnet ban is changed, there is a real push by @Claudiashein administration to secure community agreement to respect it.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo & save the #vaquita porpoise!

May is sierra mackerel season in #vaquita habitat in the Upper Gulf of California, & (still illegal) gillnets are getting bigger & bigger - this Santa Clara fisher claims his is 3 kilometers in length