According to Mexican law & Mexico's CITES action plan, gillnetting must be prevented not only in the small Zero Tolerance Area but in the entire #Vaquita Refuge, which is planned to become the new gillnet ban area, & where gillnetting has long been & still remains illegal.

Happy #EarthDay to the planet's most special place the #Vaquita Refuge illustration Lilian Tendilla

Reported actions by @Profepa_Mx April 15-19 include monitoring of the sea lion colony on Roca Consag island in the #Vaquita Refuge with @pescaabc. Encouraging signal for reducing gillnet threat here is it's one of the only growing colonies in the entire Gulf of California. x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

Community monitors will be searching especially for #vaquita porpoise mother Frida, recognizable by her kinked dorsal fin. "This year is only training since last survey was very recently in Sept 2025. The next month-long survey will be May 2027" @JulianEscutia to @fannymiranda26

Taking local capacity for #vaquita porpoise monitoring to the next level with training for San Felipe community observers, renewal of environmental eDNA study by @taniavaldiviac, & launching @CONANP_mx 2026 acoustic program to detect porpoise ultrasonic clicks with hydrophones. x.com/ernesto_men...

1/2 San Felipe fishers await new amendments to 2020 gillnet ban agreement, saying that they successfully argued against govt #vaquita expert advisory committee CIRVA's recommendation to expand the Zero Tolerance Area to the north where porpoises were sighted in May 2025 survey. x.com/lavozfronte...

Tying potential deterrents (LED lights, plastic bottles, acrylic beads, acoustic pingers) to net mesh to reduce entanglement by increasing visibility to cetacean eyesight & echolocation shows experimental promise, but #vaquita too rare to risk trials, focus on net-free zone 1st.

No gillnets or gillnetted seafood detected at inspections of 13 fishing cooperatives & markets 🤨 x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

1/2 Carlos Puelma @TribunadeMexico: "98% drop in #vaquita population over 3 decades marks one of Mexico's most serious environmental failures. The engine of the problem is economic & criminal. The government's actions have been reactive & limited. Room for maneuver is narrowing

April 7 cleanup of San Felipe's Las Escaleras beach by @CONANP_mx & @SEMAR_mx included hauling off 86 kg of washed-up ghost gillnets.

The impact of #vaquita fishing restrictions, loss of US market & low prices for seafood affect not only Upper Gulf fishers but also "a wider network of businesses, services & families." Sonora state govt to make a loan to Golpac company to build a curvina value-added market. x.com/MEGASLRC/st...

Santa Clara fisher interviewed as he makes a finfish gillnet for chano (milkfish) sold to China. Each net costs about 40,000 pesos (USD $2,300) & can be re-used for up to 4 spring seasons. Technically this net is illegal under 2020 regulation not yet changed to reduce ban area. x.com/TribunaSL/s...

From March 25-29 @PROFEPA_Mx & its partner agencies recovered three unattended gillnets in #vaquita habitat - a higher number than in previous reports. No #totoaba gillnet seizures or arrests have been announced so far this spring spawning season in the Upper Gulf of California x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

Happy Vaqueaster!

This beetle had juice ngl Still psyched #vaquita made it to final four out of dozens of endangered species. Great for raising awareness. Support much appreciated 🙌

1/2 Choose vaquita porpoise from the final round for four favorite endangered species #Vote4Vaquita With 22 hours to go, it's a special election where you can still vote twice 😅 x.com/ernesto_men...

With #USMCA (which includes "enforceable labor and environmental obligations") 6th anniversary review coming in July, @USTradeRep annual report faults Mexico for illegal fishing in #vaquita habitat, already since 2022 the subject of the treaty's first environmental consultations x.com/USTradeRep/...

1/2 Tis the season (#totoaba spawning), time for a well-researched & presented article on swim bladder #BiologicalBitcoin & impact on #vaquita porpoise by @Fannymiranda26 in @Milenio incl interview @VFelbabBrown Ray of hope from @PronaturaNoroes Valeria Towns "Huge difference.. x.com/Milenio/sta...

At least somebody in San Felipe feels better today following yesterday's San Felipe 250 offroad races and after parties 😀 x.com/JulianEscut...

Meeting of @PROFEPA_Mx, @SEMAR_mx & @Conapesca with Baja & Sonora state authorities to plan law enforcement for #vaquita & totoaba x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

If you didn't know what an actively deployed gillnet in #vaquita habitat looks like from the surface, now you do. The buoy flag marks one end, & the float line extends behind it. x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

Before dawn this morning a group of fishers freed a panga which had been detained by authorities & then blocked the coast road outside the San Felipe muelle. They left before noon after the Baja state govt Secretary General agreed to come to mediate with federal authorities. x.com/lavozfronte...

1/2 Maybe not a coincidence that the estuary north of San Felipe in the Core Zone of the Upper Gulf Biosphere Reserve is known @EarthLeagueInt to have been used for offloading poached #totoaba swim bladders (buche), & it's now high spring spawning season for the protected fish.

1/5 It is interesting that the precautionary detention (& subsequent release) of the panga which caused upset in San Felipe last week is being treated by the authorities as a violation of the Core Zone of the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve, not the #Vaquita Refuge. x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

1/2 Everyone was oh so excited - but this mother & calf pair surfacing near the panga in the smooth sunrise sea off San Felipe Sunday were dolphins, not #vaquitas

1/2 Vote for the #vaquita! Uproar for Species Survival is a conservation initiative of the Indianapolis Zoo in partnership with the @IUCN Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups. $55,000 in prize money with top vote getter grand prize of $10,000.

As Mexico & US teams met this week to prepare for July #USMCA Joint Review, 22 Democratic Senators urged strengthening of the trilateral trade treaty's environmental law enforcement provisions, citing failure of 4 years of consultations to produce results for #vaquita porpoise.

1/3 Fisherwoman Ana García's call for a protest against #vaquita fishing restrictions to block the only road into San Felipe during the major tourist events - offroad San Felipe 250 race & Semana Santa Easter week - may divide the community with its growing service-based economy

This panga has two types of gillnet aboard in the #Vaquita Refuge. x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

1/3 Fishers gathered to protest detention of a panga fishing in the #Vaquita Refuge northwest of the Zero Tolerance Area; @SEMAR_mx temporarily closed the entrance to the port in San Felipe & later agreed to a dialogue meeting with the community. x.com/lavozfronte...

All #vaquitas want is ☮️

Fishers from San Felipe met with state representatives Fidel Mogollon (Chairman of the Agriculture, Livestock, Port Affairs and Fisheries Commission) & Juan Manuel Molina. Fisherwoman Ana Garcia says they offered to review financial penalties recently imposed for illegal fishing

Ricardo Cárdenas of @SEMARNAT_mx recently visited with fishers, community conservationists & local authorities in San Felipe & is feeling positive about #vaquita recovery. His interview with @elvigia ⬇️

Women of the Upper Gulf Sea lion rescue team on International Women's Day

Another campaign to find, anaesthetize & disentangle sea lions from choking remnants of gillnets around their necks where they can't chew through the nylon mesh. San Jorge Island - Rescate de Lobos Marinos, Grupo Lobo Campodonico, CABET, @PROFEPA_MX, @pescaabc, @SeaShepherdSSCS

1/3 New CAT report examined 10 fishing days in 2026 before @SEMARNAT_mx #GIS Feb 6 announcement of planned new #vaquita gillnet ban area & found an average of nearly 70 pangas which were likely using gillnets within the area where the proposed regulatory change aims to have zero

Opening of shrimp season in fall 2025 was delayed by several weeks for the #vaquita survey. Now @Conapesca has delayed shrimp season closure - in the Upper Gulf only - to March 25 in a move welcomed by fishing community at a time of tension over planned changes to gillnet ban. x.com/Conapesca/s...

San Felipe meetings of @SEMARNAT_mx @mroblesg with @CONANP_mx citizen science group, fishers & local authorities, incl "tour of points along the coast, muelle, malecón, el Machorro - locations from which efforts will strengthen #vaquita conservation & sustainable local economy." x.com/mroblesg/st...

Don't forget the #vaquita today #WorldWildlifeDay2026 💙 art: Gail Baker Nelson

Tomorrow March 3 San Felipe celebrates #WorldWildlifeDay2026 on the Malecón with a sunrise beach cleanup followed by a sand sea turtle design contest and some volleyball

In early February @SeaShepherdSSCS reported an enforcement action by @SEMAR_mx against a gillnetting panga inside the #Vaquita Refuge's Zero Tolerance Area and separately removed a shrimp gillnet plus a flounder gillnet a whopping 1.5 km in length.

Both SEMARNAT #GIS & fishers' own proposed new gillnet ban area are similar & cover 85% of the #Vaquita Refuge. BC Diputado Juan Manuel Molina García won a vote of approval for his exhortation to the federal government to accept the fishers' proposal, which he published ⬇️

Some San Felipe fishers say they are unhappy with new gillnet ban area proposed by @SEMARNAT_mx #GIS Feb 6 (green), but both it & the area proposed by fishers themselves in Oct 2023 (brown) reduce #Vaquita Refuge (blue) by 85%. New area would open favored areas closer to shore. x.com/lavozfronte...

👀 document fraud to launder banned gillnetted blue shrimp from #vaquita porpoise habitat into the US in contravention of #MMPA included as "an alarming case" of "serious environmental crime" in Mariela León's @Cambio16 'Canned deception: fraud in fish products is on the rise.'

Interview with @colossal "conservation rock star" CEO @BenLamm in @SPIN "Ben Lamm might just save the world" His support for @PronaturaNoroes @CONANP_mx community-based conservation might just save the #vaquita porpoise, a species too many doomsayers wrote off as a lost cause 🙌

Planned smaller gillnet ban area is almost exactly what fishing leaders themselves asked for, but due to - in the words of fisherwoman Ana García - "a certain permissiveness" since 2019 re: gillnet use inside the #Vaquita Refuge, some SF fishers see changes as a loss not a gain. x.com/AldoEspino1...

Thanks @MaliciaTejeda for sharing San Felipe including and celebrating #Panchito at Carnaval parade 🥳 x.com/lavozfronte...

Five years ago journalist @MarianaVZ met cartel gun runners using fishing skiffs north of San Felipe who told her they were #CJNG working for #ElMencho

Among other actions February 16-19 in #vaquita habitat, @PROFEPA_Mx reports installation of two new buoys which mark the boundary of the Zero Tolerance Area. x.com/PROFEPA_Mx/...

Pleased to see Upper Gulf #vaquita habitat & community expertise represented at @CONANP_mx advisory body, the National Council of Protected Natural Areas #CONAP, by the vivacious Director of Conservation @PronaturaNoroes Valeria Towns 🐬🙏 x.com/CONANP_mx/s...