Because of the legendary curative effect, more than one pangolin is endangered.
Few people know that the demand of a small number of Chinese people for the California Gulf totoaba swim bladder in Mexico has not only brought this once-large population of fish to the brink of extinction, but also indirectly pushed the bay porpoise to the brink of extinction.
There are only about 30 dolphins left in the world.
(Porpoise)
"Cocaine in the Water"
Totoaba, Gulf of California totoaba, is also known as California canine yellow croaker or Totoaba.
The 1997 global convention has long banned the international trade in Totoaba, but its black market trade has been repeatedly prohibited. The dried products of fish maw are commonly known as "flower glue" and are often used to make dishes such as soups because of their so-called health effects.
Among the 34 different flower glues, Jiawan totoaba flower glue stands out for its high value, and the black market is often called "money quail". On the black market in China and Hong Kong, a kilogram of dried totoaba can be fried for 20,000 US dollars, so it is called "cocaine in the water".
Totoaba gum ©eia, which is publicly available on the Market in Guangzhou, China
According to a recent survey by the International Environmental Survey Agency (EIA) in the seafood markets in the south of the mainland and Hong Kong, the illegal trade in flower gum is still rampant. To understand the distribution of illegal Jiawan totoaba products in the market, eia visited 23 flower gum retailers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou in May 2015 and conducted an online survey. The results of the investigation show that the illegal Bay totoaba flower gum continues to supply a relatively small number of loyal customers, which also confirms the failure of law enforcement to effectively curb smuggling and illegal trafficking.
The price of Bay Totoaba Gum depends on a variety of criteria including size, gender, weight and age. The 6-9-year-old Jiawan totoaba was sold for $80,000. The vendor held hundreds of juvenile totoaba gums and could only sell for one-tenth of the price. ©eia
EIA visited 12 shops in Guangzhou, 7 of which publicly sold "money quarry". These vendors are generally aware that it is illegal to sell Totoaba gum, and that the fish only lives in areas of Mexico. They said customs did not regularly inspect dried floral goods, so smuggling such contraband from Hong Kong to Chinese mainland was simple.
Some customers buy at high prices and place them at home as a treasure for collection or as a talking point for showing off, or even for investment.
Maybe they don't know or care what the chain reaction is under such interests —fishing for it not only pushes the Gulf of California totoaba to extinction, but indirectly puts another creature, the Bay Porpoise, on the brink of extinction.
Bay porpoises lying innocently with guns
Bay porpoises, also known as small-headed porpoises, bay porpoises. It is a small dolphin that lives only in the waters of California's North Bay near Mexico. Due to fishing operations for the Gulf porpoise (Latin name: totoaba macdonaldi) living in the same waters, its population plummeted from about 567 in 1997 to 97 in 2014.
Bay Porpoise and Gulf Totoaba ©Noaa Fisheries Association
In May 2015, the Mexican government had banned gillnet fishing, but because of the huge lure of making money, there are still a large number of poaching fishermen in the Gulf of California who have laid out specialized in totoaba nets. This net is the number one killer of bay porpoises, the world's smallest dolphins. Once in the net, it is difficult to escape the ascension to heaven, and after a futile struggle, exhaustion and drowning.
Of course, in addition to the bay porpoises, there are also various sharks, turtles, dolphins, dolphins and even whales and other marine animals that are larger than them are entangled in the net, can not get rid of, and will also be entangled alive.
Today, there are fewer than 30 Bay porpoises in the world (in January 2016, that number was around 100), and the Bay Totoaba is still unknown.
The distribution area of the small-headed porpoise is extremely narrow, and only individual porpoises with recorded survival in the Gulf of California in the world have been recorded.
Operation Milagro III
Operation Milagro III of Ocean Guardians is currently in Mexican waters when the Gulf of California is underway. The fleets of two ocean guardians, Sam Simon and Farley Mowat, set sail in joint operations with the Mexican Navy in search of illegal gillnets to save these endangered marine species.
The 26 crew members from 11 different countries patrol 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in this mouse-headed dolphin sanctuary in Mexico. Our task is to find and seize these illegal gillnets. Since the beginning of the operation, hundreds of such illegal fishing nets have been found and confiscated by the Sea Guardian and the Mexican Navy.
The difficulty lies in how to quickly find and destroy these fishing nets in the vast sea. We first used drones to locate poachers' boats, waited until night to find them using the ship's front-mounted infrared monitoring system, and finally hooked the fishing nets laid by poachers with hooks.
Such actions, of course, cause direct harm to the interests of poachers. As a result, the guardians of the oceans have been constantly threatened and intimidated by each other.
In the first month of the operation, sam simon found and fished a total of 23 illegal fishing nets in Cortez waters. Of these, 21 were gillnets for catching totoabas in the Gulf of California, and 3 were "ghost nets" discarded by fishermen.
In one of the ghost nets, a dolphin that had died was found. Four other dolphins float in the nearby sea, with wounds cut by fishermen with knives when they close their nets to get them out of the nets — fishermen who illegally hunt totoabas are not interested in dolphins and other marine animals.
On 5 February, a gillnet and the carcasses of 16 totoabas were identified.
Fishermen are not interested in the rest of the totoaba, and immediately after catching it, the swim bladder is dug up and the body of the fish is discarded casually.
On 11 February, 14 more dolphin carcasses entangled in fishing nets were found.
On February 15, three drowning sharks were found.
On February 16, a female Bruce whale weighing about 12 meters long and weighing 12 tons.
Most of these marine animals died from entanglement in fishing nets specifically designed to poach totoaba.
There are at least a thousand fishing nets like this in this sea, some of which are newly laid down, and some of which are broken and discarded by fishermen on the spot, becoming the most terrible "ghost nets" that drift around with the waves. The ghost net is like a black hole that moves around irregularly, and once the marine animals are entangled and no one comes to the rescue, the result is that they are exhausted in the process of struggling to get rid of it, and then slowly drown. The process of death is long and painful.
(Gill nets seized by the Guardians of the Seas)
Cutting the nets is a big project, and in the process of cutting the nets, you will see a variety of marine creatures that are still hanging on them, and when you are lucky, some of them are still alive, and our team members still have time to release them from the nets. This kind of work sometimes comes with great risks - some panicked creatures may hurt people trying to rescue it when they struggle, our team member raffa was gently stung by a trapped cow-nosed ray while rescuing it, the stinging of the ray is fatal, fortunately raffa's sting is not serious, and this degree of "small injury" has become part of the daily work.
"Is there any salvation?"
As you may know, the white-tipped dolphin, which lives only in China's Yangtze River, was declared "functionally extinct" in 2006. It is the only species of cetacean that has gone extinct since the 1950s.
Clare Perry, head of the EIA Marine Project, said: "The future survival of the bay porpoise depends on the small number of Chinese buyers who add bay totoaba flower gum. If this profiteering market continues to develop, bay porpoises will inevitably die in these illegal fishing nets, gradually decreasing until they become extinct. ”
As long as there are poachers in the sea casting nets, the fleet of sea guardians will not let them go. Maintaining order in the sea and saving endangered marine animals is the mission and duty of the guardians of the sea.
But not everyone has the ability to go to the forefront to disconnect the Internet – maybe you're desperate to do something for the Bay Porpoise, but you don't know what to do. We always shouted out to everyone to "act now," and gradually the voice became hoarse and weak. We had all the strength, angry and sad, but it was as if a punch had been punched in the cotton.
What can we do? As a member of the general public, I keep asking myself, are we capable of urging the Chinese government to strengthen supervision and prohibit the smuggling of this top-quality flower glue? Can we get the Mexican government to step up its legal crackdown on poachers? Do we have the ability to curb the extinction of a species that already has only 30 surviving populations?
There are only a few things we can do that I can come up with:
When attending a more expensive banquet, as in the case of rejecting shark fin soup, first confirm with the restaurant and banquet organizer whether flower glue soup is provided, and whether this flower glue is a flower glue cooked with an endangered species plus bay totoaba, which is "money trout"? If yes, then refuse to consume and clearly tell others why you rejected.
If someone shows off to you that he collects expensive "money eel" collections, or even gives them "generously", then pour cold water on them and tell them that there is really nothing to envy and show off about the collection that they have bought at the price of extinct species.
Keep this in your head, talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to your kids, retweet in your circle of friends...
Don't think, "I couldn't afford this stuff anyway." People's spending power will change, when you reach that ability, please choose not to buy, and remember to tell your friends not to buy.
Kindness is a choice. I hope that when we make choices, we will all think about whether we can give some other species a chance to continue to survive. - Not just for bay porpoises and bay totoabas.
In Spanish, milagro means "miracle". Is it possible to save endangered bay porpoises and Gulf totoabas? Perhaps, we really need to expect some miracles.
Source: https://eia-international.org/illegal-fish-trade-pushes-critically-endangered-vaquita-to-extinction?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0