Captive Breeding for Vaquitas?

SealPup said:
Looks like the totoaba needs help: have Sciaenids been captive farmed priductively?

At least cetaceans get press when they face threats.
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Totoaba have never been farmed. Apparently they're slow to grow and reproduce, which would make it difficult. I do agree that the totoaba needs press as well, it has been bugging me that people are acknowledging the totoaba problem when talking about the vaquita yet don't seem as concerned about saving them. But in all fairness, if we discuss this in the context of captive breeding, a captive vaquita program probably has a better shot than a totoaba one.
 
jayjds2 said:
AZA-Accredited Aquariums and Zoos Announce $1 Million to Support Heroic Emergency Rescue Plan to Save the Vaquita Porpoise
If I'm reading this correctly, it seems a small amount for over 100 institutions to contribute.
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Eh, most AZA facilities are non-profit, so I'm pretty reluctant to complain about them not donating enough money to wild causes. It's still a good chunk of cash. But I'm hoping that these places will also put more effort into educating guests about the subject as well.
 
International Save the Vaquita Day is July 8th

July 8th, 2017 will be International Save the Vaquita Day. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there is a list of planned venues for the event. There are a bunch in California, as well as two in Arizona. Several of them are being held at aquariums and zoos. I'm happy to see one is planned for Houston, if I'm in the area at the time I'm gonna try to go. You can also sign up to volunteer at one of the venues.
 
TheMightyOrca said:
Totoaba have never been farmed. Apparently they're slow to grow and reproduce, which would make it difficult. I do agree that the totoaba needs press as well, it has been bugging me that people are acknowledging the totoaba problem when talking about the vaquita yet don't seem as concerned about saving them. But in all fairness, if we discuss this in the context of captive breeding, a captive vaquita program probably has a better shot than a totoaba one.
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Thinking about this a bit more, I'm wondering if conservation groups are focusing more on the vaquita as an attempt to save both. They're threatened by the same thing, saving one saves the other. A cute little porpoise in goth makeup has more public appeal than a fish that's admittedly a bit dull-looking. But it still sucks that the fish doesn't get much attention. (though I'm also wondering about population estimates. They found a net with 67 totoaba, that's twice the number of vaquitas estimated)

Also, it seems there are already totoaba hatchery programs. The one in the first link even released some young ones into the Gulf. I certainly hope the vaquita program can produce the same results!

Souls of the Vermilion Sea Our final shoot of 2015 for Souls of the Vermilion Sea – It’s a Wrap!

Totoaba Aquaculture and Conservation: Hope for an Endangered Fish from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez
 
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Arizona Docent said:
I was at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum today and was pleasantly surprised to see vaquita plush toys in the gift shop. :)
vaquita plush toys

vaquita plush toys

April 24, 2017
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AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH SO CUTE

I just poked around online and it looks like it's made by the Fiesta company. The Aquarium of the Pacific sells them on their website. I already have a life-sized handmade vaquita plush, (admittedly it's janky looking) but I might buy one of these too. It can be the baby. :D
 
Ohhh, are so well made! That´s a must-to-have for the ones like me that collect all kind of cetacean-related stuff. I´ll check the websites, hopefully they´ll send to Europe :rolleyes:

TheMightyOrca said:
I already have a life-sized handmade vaquita plush, (admittedly it's janky looking) but I might buy one of these too. It can be the baby. :D
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I have a Vaquita too, but carved in wood by my grandfather and painted by me, hehe.
 
Merintia said:
Ohhh, are so well made! That´s a must-to-have for the ones like me that collect all kind of cetacean-related stuff. I´ll check the websites, hopefully they´ll send to Europe :rolleyes:



I have a Vaquita too, but carved in wood by my grandfather and painted by me, hehe.
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Vaquita Porpoise Stuffed Animal | Fiesta | Stuffed Safari

Stuffed Safari sells them as well, and they ship to Europe.

The wood carved vaquita sounds lovely! I've recently taken up pyrography and I've been wanting to do a vaquita design on a jewelry box or something.
 
it looks like you have a little collection of wooden dolphins! Do you have a Hector's dolphin?
 
that's neat. I didn't realise they were that small either (the models I mean). Are they to scale with one another?
 
Yes, well, we tried to scale them, but for the last ones we just adapted to the size of the pieces of wood left, so the final result was not totally accurate XD
 
“If there’s one lesson learned, it’s that we can’t manage humans.”

There are a lot of lessons we should be learning from this, but that is definitely NOT one of them. Accepting that human activity can't be managed or controlled condemns every threatened species to extinction and our Earth to environmental catastrophe. The vaquita isn't on the brink like this because it was inevitable, they are going extinct because we did not do enough, fast enough, to prevent a foreseeable decline.
 
that's a shockingly fast decline:
"In 1997, scientists counted 567 vaquitas; the number dropped by half in the next nine years, to 245. In just one year, the number halved again, to only 30 last year from 60 in 2015."
 
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