News Update #16

According to Vivavaquita, some ways YOU can help the Vaquita are:

Tell all your friends and family about the Vaquita.

Support conservation measures and vote for politicians with a good environmental record.

Support the Mexican economy by traveling to Mexico.

Do not buy shrimp or fish caught with gillnets.

Write your elected officials and tell them to help the Vaquita.

Write a letter to the President of Mexico and tell him to save the Vaquita. Felipe.Calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

Send Vaquita drawings to the United Nations, asking them to support Vaquita conservation efforts by Mexico.
ExecutiveOffice@unep.org

Send a message to the Mexican government to show your support for the Vaquita! Below are the most relevant agencies and links to their online suggestion boxes:

SEMARNAT (Ministry of Natural Resources)
http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/Pages/buzonciudadano.aspx

CONANP (Commission of Natural Protected Areas)
http://www.conanp.gob.mx/buzon.php

Donate to the Vaquita Recovery Fund!
http://www.vivavaquita.org/donations.htm

Poem #8

Through thick rustling leaves of beige and toast,

Oe’r crisp vast ice whiter than a ghost.

Down streetways and alleys swarming with crowds,

Up huge frosty mountains piercing the clouds.

Down rift valleys and ‘cross frozen tundra,

African deserts and the Land Down Under.

The world is huge, with room to spare,

But something’s somewhere, and only there.

Dive in the sea, sink like a fallen ship.

Swim until you reach the southernmost tip

Of California, then head through the foam,

And find the place Vaquita call home:

The Sea of Cortes, rich and warm,

With rainbow fish teeming in swarms.

The tiny Vaquita, gentle and few,

Are vanishing quickly; what do we do?

They happily swim ‘mong coral and kelp,

In spite of this, they need our help.

Gillnets trap them and take their lives,

Until now, we’ve ignored their strife.

Be brave, la Vaquita, and do not fret.

Side by side, we’ll conquer the net.

Poem #2

I swim in a place where fish float by.

Croakers, grunts, and shrimps you fry.

Silky sea grass below, shiny sun above,

But the Gulf isn’t a place filled with much love.

You catch us with nets set out for shrimp,

And at the moment of impact, our bodies go limp.

Our entire kind is quickly disappearing.

The weight of an entire species we’re bearing.

But the one thing we care about most:

Vaquita don’t have to say “Adios”.