The northern stock of Striped Marlin in the Eastern Pacific Ocean migrates to waters off the Baja's coast during autumn and winter months for feeding and breeding purposes. These stocks have been severely over fished. First, in the early 1960s by the Japanese tuna longline fleet and recently by an Ensenada fleet of drift gillnetters that started working the Baja coast in the early 1980s. In the mid 1990s a Mexican longline fleet also based out of Ensenada became prolific. This fleet consists of about 50 large drift gillnetters with 2 mile long nets and about the same number of large longliners using 35 to 70 mile longlines. Two longliners took 11,743 striped marlin in 9 months off Magdalena Bay (details below) Add to that a large number of small vessels called “pangas” that fish the entire Pacific coast of the Baja with short 3-4 mile longlines and 400 foot drift gillnets. That's a major longliner or drift gillnetter every 8 miles from the Mexican border to Cabo. Add to all the above, approximately 600 licensed and unlicensed sports boats between the East Cape and Cabo and you start to get an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

The billfish population in the Sea of Cortez is down about 80% to 90% from pre-industrial fishing levels of the 1960s paralleling what the recent (Myers/Worm) report says; what Sea Watch reported in 1993 and what the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), said at their 69 th annual meeting in late June 2002, “The striped marlin are overfished with a current abundance at less than ½ of the level which would support maximum sustainable yield.” The average weight of a striped marlin caught in Cabo has gone from 160 lbs in the mid 1980s to 110 lbs in 2000 to about 100 lbs in 2003. Some still claim the declines are cyclical, that the fish will return, but at this level of fishing effort, be assured they will not.

In Mexico it is illegal to catch any billfish commercially inside 50 miles from the coast as they are - by chapter 13 Fisheries Law or “Ley de Pesca” - reserved exclusively for sportfishing. But Mexican longliners and drift gillnetters are operating on shark permits which allow them to come within 1,000 meters of the beach and take huge numbers of marlin and other species also reserved for sportsfishing. Inshore they also have killed large numbers of turtles, mammals, seabirds and whales migrating down the Baja coast. For example two longliners fishing for swordfish off Magdalena Bay from September 1997 through May of 1998 deployed 472,000 hooks catching 11, 743 Striped Marlin as incidental catch. The incidental billfish caught were 80% of the total catch, while the targeted swordfish were less than 3% of the catch (details)

Although drift gillnets and longlines are primarily responsible for the marlin's dramatic declines, they are not alone. Though most of the major hotels and The Sportfishing Association of Cabo San Lucas and the East Cape strongly encourage “catch and release” of all billfish, it is more and more common to see the fleet captains and deckhands with an ice chest stuffed with marlin. The going rate for an illegal marlin paid by restaurants and markets is $75.00 per marlin. In the 1970s there were less then 25 sports fishing boats out at anytime from Cabo to the East Cape. Now there are about 600 registered boats.This doesn't include the commercial panga fleet, which also often fishes for and takes the marlin illegally.

From 1994-2001, SeaWatch interviewed approximately fifty-five Mexican and American fisherman. Those fisherman, who had been working in the Sea of Cortez for the last twenty to thirty years report a severely depleted sea.(click for details) The anecdotal data collected in these interviews mirrors the recent study by Myers and Worm , which shows that within 10 years of the start of commercial exploitation, a fishery is reduced by about 90%.

The people who fish daily in the oceans know when sea life disappears. Their job requires them to look carefully for signs of fish in the oceans. When those signs disappear, it is the fisherman, not the scientists who notice first. For the last twenty five years in Mexico the scientists and fishery management agencies have been strongly influenced by commercial interests, and thus refuse to acknowledge the true depletion of the fisheries lest they offend their benefactors. Meanwhile politicians call for new studies to establish “baseline data” but the baselines no longer exist. As Meyers and Worm confirm in their report, “Management schemes are usually implemented well after industrialized fishing has begun and only serve to stabilize biomass at current low levels.”

Today, fish stocks in the Sea of Cortez are down 80%-90% from thirty years ago. As Dr. Russell Nelson observed fishing interests “have attempted to achieve maximum harvests in the face of stock biomass declines with little regard to future sustainability.”

If gillnets and longliners are not removed from the Sea of Cortez immediately, there is no chance for recovery.

Mexico must implement a sound management plan based on a candid acknowledgement of the present depletion of the sea. That plan must include:

1.-  Enforce the 50 mile and the core management area no take zones, which are the feeding and breeding waters off the Baja coast out to the Revillagigedo Islands, by implementing immediately VMS.

2.-  Remove drift gillnets immediately from all Mexican waters (in the EEZ)

3.-  Place a No-Fishing Moratorium on longliner permits until available scientific information (national and international) is reviewed and environmental impact studies show if it is true that sufficient fish stocks are available. Then and only then allow limited fishing with the restrictions similar to those that longliners in North America have to comply with, including VMS and staying outside 50 miles and out of the core management areas and other designated commercial closed zones.

4.- Start Guardianes del Mar which is a program similar to a State Fish and Game Department. Modeled after existing Federal law, Guardianas del Mar brings together Mexican Federal and State Government offices that deal with fisheries management and enforcement. This project currently being put together in B.C.S would be jointly financed and overseen by the civilian population.

You must start with people understanding that there is a rule of law in the Sea of Cortes. There is none now.

Click here to learn how you can help.