Mexico poachers' go-fast boats endangering porpoises
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican poachers are using go-fast boats, leading authorities trying to protect an endangered porpoise on 50-mile chases and parking pickup trucks on beaches to load boats and escape quickly.
Mexico's environment department revealed some of the poachers' risky tactics Thursday, describing a chase earlier this week in which authorities detected a boat apparently fishing for Totoaba in an area where gill net fishing is banned to protect the vaquita marina porpoise.
However, the crew escaped after leading a Navy boat on a 54-mile (90-kilometer) chase. The truck they were planning to use to haul their boat away got stuck in the rising tide.
The totoaba is prized in China for its swim bladder, but by-catch includes vaquitas, of which fewer than 30 remain.
The department said that over the last two years, it had seized 182 such open boats in the area, as well as 15 small trawlers and 40 vehicles in raids against illegal fishing in the upper Gulf.
It said that while small boats are usually limited to using 100-horsepower motors in the area, the poachers are using motors of over 200 horsepower.
The totoaba trade is highly lucrative, with thousands of dollars paid on the black market for a couple of pounds (kilogram) of bladders.
The poachers' dangerous tactics have been seen before on videos filmed from shore but whose authenticity could not be independently verified.
One such video shows an escape like the one described by authorities, in which a patrol boat is seen chasing a small fishing craft.
The small boat literally runs at full speed onto a boat trailer attached to a pickup waiting in the surf, and the pickup speeds off, up to its wheel wells in water.
The tactics illustrate the difficulties authorities face in patrolling the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, the only place the vaquita lives.
Despite the ban, over 900 illegal nets and lines have been found in the area and removed over the last two years, and 174 people have been charged with illegal fishing.
A force of about 350 inspectors and military personal, 19 vessels, aircraft and a drone system are being used to enforce the fishing bans.
But the effort is an uphill battle. Authorities reported Monday they found another dead vaquita in the Gulf, with wounds apparently made by humans.
