California's Porpoises are Proof that a Gillnet Ban Can Save Marine Animals from Extinction
A Fishes Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Katie Valentine, LadyFreethinker.org
February 2021

In the years since California outlawed gillnets, three of the region’s four porpoise groups have grown to the size where scientists consider their populations are stabilizing.

Image Credit: Facebook/Wildlife Conservation Film Festival

California’s harbor porpoises are rebounding following the state’s 1994 gillnet ban, a recent study reported.

Harbor porpoises, gentle animals found in shallow coastal waters who generally keep to themselves, are at a greater risk of getting tangled and inadvertently captured by gillnets, known as “bycatch.” Their numbers hit an all-time low in 1990, after decades of commercial fishing that killed hundreds of them every year.

But in the years since California outlawed gillnets, three of the region’s four porpoise groups have grown to the size where scientists consider their populations are stabilizing.

“This is very good evidence that if we can eliminate the deaths in fishing nets, marine mammal populations can come back in a big way,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research biologist Karen Forney. “The story in California tells us that these animals are capable of recovering if we eliminate the factors causing their decline.”

Scientists became aware of the extensive damage gillnets caused to wildlife after they noticed seabirds dying in droves off the Central California Coast, the LA Times reported. They subsequently discovered that harbor porpoises’ numbers were perilously low, and that numerous other marine mammals also were suffering, including sea otters.

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