Exploring Trade-Offs Between Fisheries and Conservation of the Vaquita Porpoise (Phocoena sinus) Using an Atlantis Ecosystem Model

Authors

Hem Nalini Morzaria-Luna, Marine Resources Assessment Group Americas Incorporated, Seattle
Cameron H. Ainsworth, Marine Resources Assessment Group Americas Incorporated, SeattleFollow
Isaac C. Kaplan, Conservation Biology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle
Phillip S. Levin, Conservation Biology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle
Elizabeth A. Fulton, Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research, The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Wealth from Oceans Flagship, Tasmania

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Keywords

Shrimp, Fisheries, Predation, Trophic interactions, Environmental economics, Death rates, Ecosystem modeling, Conservation science

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0042917

Abstract

Background: Minimizing fishery bycatch threats might involve trade-offs between maintaining viable populations and economic benefits. Understanding these trade-offs can help managers reconcile conflicting goals. An example is a set of bycatch reduction measures for the Critically Endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus), in the Northern Gulf of California, Mexico. The vaquita is an endemic species threatened with extinction by artisanal net bycatch within its limited range; in this area fisheries are the chief source of economic productivity.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We analyze trade-offs between conservation of the vaquita and fisheries, using an end-to-end Atlantis ecosystem model for the Northern Gulf of California. Atlantis is a spatially-explicit model intended as a strategic tool to test alternative management strategies. We simulated increasingly restrictive fisheries regulations contained in the vaquita conservation plan: implementing progressively larger spatial management areas that exclude gillnets, shrimp driftnets and introduce a fishing gear that has no vaquita bycatch. We found that only the most extensive spatial management scenarios recovered the vaquita population above the threshold necessary to downlist the species from Critically Endangered. The scenario that excludes existing net gear from the 2008 area of vaquita distribution led to moderate decrease in net present value (US$ 42 million) relative to the best-performing scenario and a two-fold increase in the abundance of adult vaquita over the course of 30 years.

Conclusions/Significance: Extended spatial management resulted in the highest recovery of the vaquita population. The economic cost of proposed management actions was unequally divided between fishing fleets; the loss of value from finfish gillnet fisheries was never recovered. Our analysis shows that managers will have to confront difficult trade-offs between management scenarios for vaquita conservation.

Was this content written or created while at USF?

No

Citation / Publisher Attribution

PLOS ONE, v. 7, issue 8, art. e42917

© This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Scholar Commons Citation

Morzaria-Luna, Hem Nalini; Ainsworth, Cameron H.; Kaplan, Isaac C.; Levin, Phillip S.; and Fulton, Elizabeth A., "Exploring Trade-Offs Between Fisheries and Conservation of the Vaquita Porpoise (Phocoena sinus) Using an Atlantis Ecosystem Model" (2012). Marine Science Faculty Publications. 1808.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/1808