Final Days with the Vaquita

We had two days left to spot a vaquita and capture some footage of this elusive marine mammal. Luckily for us, the weather conditions were cooperating. As explained in the previous post from volunteer Joe Shull, the water surface needs to be very still for a vaquita sighting to be realistic.

We ventured out into one of the (relatively) high-density areas for vaquita and the wind died completely. In the absence of wind, the water surface slowly began to smooth out, until it was almost completely flat – a zero on what’s called the beaufort wind scale. This system for measuring how wind speed relates to conditions at sea is expressed on a scale of 0 to 12, with 12 representing hurricane-force wind, and 0 being completely calm conditions with virtually no wind.

For the purposes of sighting vaquita, beaufort scale conditions must be somewhere between 0 and 2 – anything above 2 makes it simply too difficult to spot the tiny dorsal fin of the vaquita amidst the choppy water. Our previous unconfirmed vaquita sightings had occured in beaufort scale 2 conditions, not quite optimal viewing conditions. So everyone on board the Maria Cleofas was very excited to finally have ideal beaufort scale 0 conditions!

We all scanned the horizon with high expectations. The Maria Cleofas was in the best location, with the best possible weather conditions for seeing a vaquita! Unfortunately the vaquita was initially uncooperative – we saw nothing resembling a small porpoise all day, and eventually had to start the boat’s loud diesel engine and head towards our anchor point for the night.

As we slowly motored through the vaquita biosphere reserve at dusk, we heard a shout from the front of the boat! Tom Kieckhefer has spotted something! Everyone rushed to the front of the Maria Cleofas and stared intently through their binoculars. I set up my camera and pressed record, in the hopes that the animal would surface again and pop into my frame.

Unfortunately we never saw this vaquita a second time, but it would be counted as our first confirmed vaquita sighting, as Tom was very confident in what he saw (and has decades of experience observing marine mammals). So once again a bittersweet day – we knew that the vaquitas were out there, but couldn’t seem to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of them!

The following day our ideal weather conditions continued, but our luck had run out and we had no vaquita sightings. In the early afternoon we headed back towards San Felipe – it was time for Joe and myself to return to Idaho, and Tom Jefferson and Tom Kieckhefer (of ¡Viva Vaquita!) needed to be back in California. Although we had had only marginal success in sighting vaquita, and hadn’t managed to capture a single frame showing this most elusive of porpoises, it was time for us to head home.

Looking back on the past three weeks spent in San Felipe and out in the Sea of Cortez searching for vaquita, I can’t believe how much my perspective on this issue has changed! Although I had been involved in our new film Souls of the Vermilion Sea for more than six months before traveling to Mexico, it was very difficult to get a true sense of the complexity of this situation without being at ground zero.

I left Mexico a bit overwhelmed by the many different layers that we had uncovered surrounding vaquita recovery efforts, but also with some hope for the future. The crew on board the Ocean Star has had numerous additional sightings of vaquita since that first sighting that we were so lucky to be a part of, providing some hope for forthcoming population estimates. We were also lucky enough to see firsthand the dedication of many different people to the continued existence of this species. One thing is clear – no one is going to give up on the vaquita until the last animal is gone.

 

Links:

Souls of the Vermilion Sea official website

Grupo Cleofas – the non-profit which operates the observation vessel “Maria Cleofas”

¡Viva Vaquita! – a group dedicated to vaquita conservation and recovery