Mexico invests 16 million dollars to save sea cow

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

ENSENADA (AFP) — Mexico plans to invest 163 million pesos (16 million dollars) to save a rare and endangered sea cow, of which less than 150 remain in the Gulf of California.

Seventy-three percent of vaquita marinas -- Spanish for "little sea cow" -- have disappeared in the last 10 years, caught in fishing drag nets.

Most of the government funds announced this week will go toward paying fishermen to either avoid the porpoise's habitat or give up fishing completely.

"We have to let the ecosystem rest," Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, environment and national resources secretary, told AFP, during a trip to Ensenada on Wednesday to hand symbolic cheques to fisherman who had accepted the deal.

Around one thousand fishermen, about 40 percent of those fishing...