Leonardo DiCaprio News: Oscar-Winning Actor Lauds Mexican Government's Move to Permanently Ban Gillnets
Award-winning actor and known environmental advocate Leonardo DiCaprio hailed the recent move of Mexico to ban fishing with gillnets in the northern Gulf of California.
As gillnets are designed to allow fish not to fully pass through the netting other than their head, they are considered to be the culprit for the deaths of the vaquita porpoises, despite the fact that they are intended for catching shrimp and totoaba.
To recall, the Mexican government imposed a two-year temporary ban on the fishing method in the Gulf two years ago for the protection of the vaquita porpoises. However, in its recent posting on its official gazette, the Mexican government announced that gillnets are already permanently prohibited in the area.
Because of the Mexican government's move, DiCaprio took to Twitter to express his satisfaction and thanked the people involved in making the permanent ban happen, including Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the World Wildlife Fund. After all, the actor's eponymous foundation estimated last month that there are only around 30 vaquitas left in the wild.
Three weeks prior to the announcement, the Mexican government and the Oscar-award winning actor revealed the plan to save the vaquitas from extinction.
However, imposing a permanent ban on gillnets is not a panacea to save the vaquitas from extinction. According to reports, Mexican Environment Minister Rafael Pacchiano would also resort to using dolphins for the location of the endangered species and herd them into a marine refuge beginning this September.
"We've spent the past year working alongside the US Navy with a group of dolphins they had trained to search for missing scuba divers. We've been training them to locate the vaquitas. We have to guarantee we capture the largest possible number of vaquitas to have an opportunity to save them," Pacchiano said in an interview.
