Two fishermen were injured off the coast of Baja California when their small boat crashed on a larger ship that the Sea Shepherd group uses to keep the vaquita from extinction, the environmental organization said.
The attack is the latest in a growing spiral of protests from fishermen using banned gillnets in the Gulf of California, the only place in the world where the vaquita lives. It is believed that there are only a few dozen left, making it the world’s most endangered marine mammal.
Fishing nets seized by Sea Shepherd ships are expensive, so fishermen often harass environmental group boats in an attempt to get them back, claiming that the Mexican government has not compensated them for the loss of revenue they have suffered. Groups representing them were not available for comment.
Sea Shepherd reported that his ship, the Farley Mowat, was clearing illegal gillnets from the waters of the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, when people in a group of about half a dozen small open-ended fishing boats Molotov started throwing cocktails at him. ship, burning on the bow and elsewhere.
The attackers also threw lead weights for nets at the crew, the group reported, which published a video showing a fishing vessel approaching the Farley Mowat at high speed and crashing into the side.
Two of the boat’s occupants were rescued from the sea by the Sea Shepherd crew and Mexican Marines, who often accompany the crew on these trips. One of them got CPR for not breathing, and the Navy transferred them both to a hospital.
It confirmed that the injuries were the result of a “collision” and distributed photos of the men being transferred by helicopter for treatment, but did not provide details about their health.
Two other men boarded the Farley Mowat and threatened the crew and Marines, the group reported.
“This morning’s attack is the latest in a series of increasingly violent attacks against Sea Shepherd ships over the past month,” the agency said in its statement. “The attackers have Molotov cocktails, knives, hammers, flares, fuel bottles and other projectiles that are lethal to the ships, their crew and military personnel. There were no serious injuries before today’s incident.”
Sea Shepherd is working closely with the Mexican authorities to remove the nets, but fishermen are increasingly daring to confront the Marines and crew.
The vaquita population has been drastically decimated by the illegal use of gill nets to capture totoaba, whose swim bladders can be sold for thousands of dollars in China.