The Illegal Fishing happens at Night, there's so much Money Involved

Jonathan Garcia Pereda snapped a photo, the contraband glowing white in his smartphone. Mexican federal police had stopped a 28-year-old man from San Felipe at a checkpoint, discovering black plastic bags balled up in the tires. It appeared to be another familiar bust to the Mexican police, until they cut open the bags. Hong Kong bans the sale of totoaba, because it’s an endangered species. Perhaps the Hong Kong shop owner holding the picture was thinking of the law: Two weeks ago, he said he could sell totoaba. But on this second visit, he quoted the $100,000 price and urged us to shop elsewhere. At another store, a merchant pledged totoaba will help ease achy joints and soft tissues. The recommended way to ingest it? “Soup.” The only way to buy it? A lot of money.

The Russian-made helicopter lifted off the ground of the Mexican naval base at San Felipe, a fishing village in Mexico’s Baja California. Aboard the helicopter were nearly a dozen sailors, some armed with semiautomatic rifles. The chopper made its way from dusty flatlands to the pristine blue waters of the Sea of Cortez. Just a few clicks north of San Felipe, the Colorado River meets the Gulf of California, where freshwater flows into the sea.

It’s here, 5,019 square miles of the gulf, that is home to the totoaba’s nursery and spawning habitat. The Mexican military flies twice a day over this nursery, patrolling for poachers. Mexico’s government declared this area and 400 miles of coastline a protected habitat and off-limits to all fishing. But money is a more potent draw than the fear of arrest, with poachers making as much money from the bladders as they do from cocaine. That pound for pound profit is why observers dub the totoaba bladder “aquatic cocaine.”

Shortly after taking off, the pilot spots a giant net in the protected coastline. It’s is an illegal totoaba net, hidden until poachers can drop the 2 kilometer-long net in the gulf to trap totoaba. Nine sailors, heaving and sweating, pull the heavy net aboard the chopper. The captain of the mission lifts a corner of the net. “The holes are 12 inches wide,” he said. “It’s used specifically to fish totoaba illegally. The head gets stuck, and it suffocates. It’s dangerous to the totoaba, but it’s also the main killer of the vaquita.”