Captive Breeding for Vaquitas?

Urgent Crisis: Fewer Than 30 Vaquita Remain in the World - Phoenix Zoo

The Phoenix Zoo is trying to raise money and awareness for vaquitas and this captivity project. The zoo and board members have together donated $65,000, and are encouraging zoo visitors to donate money as well. ($5 gets you a button, anyone want to send me one? lol) In addition, they have set up a way to donate money to the project through the zoo website.

 

And another one found dead :

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-vaquita-porpoises-dead-mexico.html

 

It is not just Phoenix Zoo, other AZA zoos are joining in, including both of my local zoos in Tucson.

 

Found an article with photos and more info.

Baby Vaquita Porpoise Found Dead

Sea Shepherd was the group that found the baby. They turned the carcass over to Mexican authorities. An necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. The body of a dead adult was reported nearby, but this hasn't been confirmed.

SS also found a net containing 66 dead totoaba and one living one, further proof that despite efforts to stop it, poaching is still going strong. The live one was set free.

 

Dead Vaquita Found Floating in Gulf of California

Another dead vaquita. More photos can be seen at the Sea Shepherd website here. Other updates on their mission to remove illegal gillnets can be found here.

 

I just returned from Phoenix Zoo. They have posters at ticket booth and ask if you want to round up your ticket price to the nearest full dollar amount, with the change going to vaquita recovery (which of course I did).

 

Nice. I'm gonna try to donate a few bucks through their website. Not much, but hey, if lots of people do it then it adds up, ha ha. Do they have the educational display up yet?

 

I did not see any educational displays on this at Phoenix Zoo. Do you know where they are going to put it?

 

It's gonna be set up next to the stingray exhibit.

 

Then it was not set up yet, because I definitely went by Stingray Bay. Unless it was so small I did not notice, but I doubt that. Veering slightly off topic, this stingray petting idea is becoming very popular. Not only did they add it recently to Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, they now have it at the ostrich farm on the freeway between Phoenix and Tucson!

 

And there is a stingray touch pool at Huachipa as well.

Ironically this story is why I am skeptical of captive breeding: as with Sumatran rhinos it gets left... late. It's not as though people hadn't noticed the decline for years before anyone turned to captive breeding. And suppose the captive breeding attempt fails like it actually harmed the Sumatran rhinos.

 

Yes it failed with Sumatran rhinos, but it worked with California condors. I think (and hope) this situation is more like the condors than the rhinos. As with condors, the entire remaining population will be brought together in a specialized, non-public breeding center. With rhinos, they split up individuals to each of the paying zoos in non specialized enclosures. I mean a lone rhino in a barren paddock in Los Angeles, a lone rhino in a barren paddock in San Diego, etc - how does this help save the species?

 

I think a key problem was even as late as the '80's, with incidents like the Sumatran rhino and Amazon river dolphin, there was still an attitude to acquire a species, place it in a semi-generic exhibit and play it by the vest. Throw the dolphin in the same tank you'd use for another Amazon creature, or let the rhino in a generic paddock with a rainforest-y background - and we'll see what happens.

This is not the same attitude and level of care placed towards more recent and successful attempts at conservation, and in today's day and age, we're becoming much more adept at learning how to take care of these species before they're running around a public yard. More effort can be invested into studying behavior in-situ first and preparing the exhibit effectively.

This is why I'm optimistic about the future of conservation in terms of individual species, and why I don't always take 'this species didn't do well in captivity forty years ago' as the end-all reason - that does not mean captivity is always the best or only answer either.

I would agree completely that it's problematic how often these efforts are simply ignored until the species is as close to the edge of extinction as possible. I think the unfortunate truth is for these less charismatic species, it is often the higher up, larger groups, that refuse to give in to political pressure to assist until it is too late.

As for the possibility of it getting worse, I don't believe it possibly can. If the species is going to become extinct within a few short years in either case, I think it might be better for them to die in the care of the scientific community. The controversy with the Sumatran Rhinoceros seems to be rooted in the idea they had more of a fighting chance before the intervention than after.

 

For real, I'd be more enthusiastic about this program if they started it much earlier. It's not like the population decline happened over the course of a few months. If the vaquita population is 300 or so, failure (in the form of a few dead porpoises) wouldn't hurt nearly as badly as it would with a population of 30. It's really sad that many species don't get attention until it's too late. For the past few years I've kept a close eye on cetacean news for my blog, vaquita news was pretty rare until the past year or so. (less than that, really)

Still, at this point I doubt the program can harm the species. The situation is critical, efforts to save them in the wild aren't working fast enough... They're gonna keep dying whether or not captivity/breeding is attempted. At least with captivity, there's a slim chance they can be saved.

 

Yeah, it seems like zoos and aquariums right now are big on finding new but safe (for all parties) interaction programs, like stingray petting and giraffe feeding. I'm not surprised, it provides a new type of experience, one that you can't watching nature documentaries at home.

You have a good point. It makes me wonder if the real challenge will be finding and capturing them in the first place. (though even modern circumstances cast doubt on whether the captivity will go well. Hopefully they don't be too different from harbor porpoises. Fjord&Baelt has kept some harbor porpoises alive for impressive amounts of time in similar ocean enclosures)

Another possible benefit to this program, if they can get it to work... Having some captive specimens might increase public interest in the species, which could help speed up conservation efforts. Yeah, they're not gonna be up for public viewing (as far as I can tell, anyway) but the program can post photos and updates and videos. Make the vaquita visible, get people invested in their fate.

 

Once Noticias
A video on the current situation of the vaquita marina and the fishing ban which has been extended despite local opposition from fishermen affected. Mexico' s most eminent biologist Dr.José Sarukhan considers that the vaquita can still be saved.
Video en español amigos.

 

What is your assessment of the vaquitas' chance of survival, carlos? Are you hopeful?

What is public opinion about vaquita conservation in Mexico?

 

estimado david,
I have personally met dr. Sarukan and assited to his lectures. he is our country most respected biologist and head of Conabio or Comisión nacional para el conocimiento de la Biodiversidad. If he is optomistic about the vaquita marina, he must have certain information which perhaps is not accesible to the general public. The mexican government does not want to lose the vaquita, the enviromental protection agency director says it on the video. The problem is the local fishermen of the upper area of the gulf of california. The fishing ban is very unpopular to them and they are still willing to carry out illegal activities. In this situation captive breeding of vaquitas seems indispensable and i suspect personally that is already being carried out in the preliminary stages.

 

Looks like the totoaba needs help: have Sciaenids been captive farmed priductively?

At least cetaceans get press when they face threats.

 

all totoaba are captured from the sea