International dealers are driving endangered marine creatures towards oblivion to get their hands on the illegal substance hailed as a health panacea in the Far East. Not only are rare fish facing the brink for their precious swim bladders – which are dried to make the so-called aquatic cocaine – one of the world’s most threatened porpoises is also being wiped out as “collateral damage”. Critically endangered vaquita are now down to their last 100 individuals swimming in Mexico’s Gulf of California waters after being snared in nets set to catch precious totoaba fish for the illegal substance also known as maw.
“The vaquita’s extinction clock stands at one minute to midnight and the species is being pushed into oblivion by the demand of a relatively small number of Chinese consumers of totoaba maw,” says Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigations Agency’s oceans campaign team, which has been delving into the illegal backmarket.
Totoaba fish are exploited for their swim bladders – organs used by the creatures for balance – but once dried and powdered are said to have magical properties in Chinese medicine, although any health benefits are unproven.
The dried bladders were traditionally known as maw on Chinese and Hong Kong Markets but since fishing for the rare totoaba was banned in 1975 and the black market price soared, they have taken on the other names of “aquatic cocaine” or “golden coin”.
As conservation officials meet in Geneva this week to discuss trade in endangered species, the Environmental Investigations Agency has published a new report titled Double Extinction to highlight the plight of the vaquita and totoaba and calling for new measures to combat the illegal trade.
The report was produced after the EIA carried out inquiries in Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong province markets, looking for totoaba maw.Besides finding it available in six out of 12 shops previously inspected in Guangdong, investigators also describe how traders know totoaba maw sales are illegal and that it is being smuggled as contraband between Hong Kong and mainland China.
In Hong Kong, says the EIA, traders were more guarded, with only two shops displaying maw. EIA’s oceans campaign team leader Clare Perry added: “Less than 100 vaquita are left – and the clock is still ticking.“The vaquita and totoaba are both fully protected under national law as well as internationally through their CITES Appendix I listings, but such safeguards are worthless without urgent intervention on the ground to enforce them.”
Among the demands called for in the EIA report are an increased in enforcement in marine product markets, seizure of fish maw, the arrests and prosecution of offenders and the closure of enterprises involved in the illegal trade.
The report warns: “While this lucrative market continues, vaquita will inevitably die in illegal fishing nets and dwindle to extinction.
Governments, customs and other enforcement agencies need to urgently step up efforts to halt the illegal totoaba trade in order to save both species.”