Please read this amazing firsthand account of the Vaquita situation in San Felipe, Mexico written by Vince Radice. Vince and his wife Maria Ines run the websites http://sancarlos.tv/ and http://worldsaquarium.com/, as well as the Indiegogo campaign to make a Vaquita documentary (the documentary and in-depth accompanying article will be published soon). The article below is very unique in that it is fresh information straight out of fishermen’s mouths (caution, if you are sensitive to certain words, you might want to skip this one). 😉 The comments also have some great points and insight, including validation of an event that occurs in my upcoming Vaquita novel, Nets.
Tag Archives: Spanish
Increasing awareness
Today I finished reading the North American Conservation Action Plan (NACAP) for the Vaquita. You can read it online here: http://www.cec.org/Storage/62/5476_Vaquita-NACAP.pdf (the English section starts on page 48).
It is a very in-depth paper from 2008 with extremely important and relevant information. It reaches a similar conclusion to many other papers in that the fishermen are willing to help the Vaquita as long as they do not lose their income for it and their families can still be sustained. Basically the entire world wants to help the Vaquita, including the fishermen, so really all that needs to be done is our governments work together to complete all of the goals required to save it before time runs out.
I was particularly interested in the matrix provided on pages 76-79 that charts all of the priorities for saving the Vaquita, as of 2007, according to the CEC. Many of the things listed have already been done, which is promising. Below is the section for increasing awareness, with the first box containing the action, the second showing the priority (more ! = more important), and the third showing the time frame. I am really excited to try to help make these things happen, and I am sure the Muskwa Club will play a crucial role in these endeavors. All of these things are past their due date, but that does not mean they shouldn’t be done. Earlier in the paper it states, “The [conservation] sector also stressed the value of having information flow smoothly among the various sectors [fishing, aquaculture, tourism, and conservation] so that problems can be identified and solutions sought in a timely, efficient manner.” This idea is extremely similar to the Muskwa Club’s idea of the Vaquita Preservation Alliance, which I will write about once the details are figured out after the Muskwa Club – American Cetacean Society Los Angeles meeting on October 25.
(Click the chart if the words are too small.)
Spanish WWF petition
Here is another petition by WWF Mexico to the Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (again, if you have his email, please give it to me for my petition). The page is entirely in Spanish, so here are what the words mean in the petition box:
(____) ya han firmado. Ayúdanos a conseguir 50,000: (____) have already signed. Help us get 50,000
País: Country
Nombre: First Name
Apellido: Last Name
Email: Email
Código Postal: Zip code
Quiero recibir noticias y actualizaciones: I want to receive news and updates
Firmar Petición: Sign Petition
If you want to read the petition before signing (it’s basically the same as the other one), just copy and paste into Google Translate. I find it very fun to search the web for new Vaquita info and pictures. Check out these two cool Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/SanFelipePescadosYMariscos and https://www.facebook.com/WWF.Mexico. I find myself learning Spanish very rapidly with all these websites. ¡Qué tenga un buen día!
La vaquita marina
The Vaquita is called la vaquita marina in Spanish. Since vaquita means “little cow”, it cannot simply be called la vaquita, for that would cause much confusion among the Spanish community. Marina, meaning “marine”, is added to the word to show it’s a porpoise, not a bovine calf.
Little cow
Vaquita is Spanish for “little cow.”
V-log 