ACUERDO que establece veda para la especie Totoaba, Cynoscion MacDonaldi, en aguas del Golfo de California, desde la desembocadura del Río Colorado hasta el Río Fuerte, Sinaloa en la costa oriental, y del Río Colorado a Bahía Concepción, Baja California, en la costa occidental.

Summary

This Mexican fisheries order closes the fishery for totoaba, a large fish of the Gulf of California, to all fishing, commercial and sport, with no end date. The closure covers the Gulf from the mouth of the Colorado River to the Río Fuerte in Sinaloa on the eastern side, and from the Colorado River to Bahía Concepción on the Baja California side. It takes effect the day after publication, and anyone who fishes totoaba is liable to the penalties of the federal fisheries law of the time.

Why it matters

The totoaba and the vaquita share the upper Gulf, and the large-mesh gillnets used for totoaba later became the main cause of vaquita deaths. This closure is the start of the legal protection of totoaba that the later gillnet rules build on.

Key findings

1. 01 Art. 1 closes the totoaba fishery completely in the Gulf of California, with no end date; it ends only when studies by the Instituto Nacional de Pesca say so.
2. 02 Art. 2 strictly prohibits fishing totoaba; the preamble says the closure applies to commercial and sport fishing alike.
3. 03 Stated reasons: falling catch statistics, a restricted range, spawners concentrated in a few places, and juveniles caught incidentally by shrimp trawlers.
4. 04 The order is dated 19 June 1975, was published on 1 August 1975, and enters into force the day after publication.
5. 05 Art. 3 makes violators liable to the sanctions of the Ley Federal para el Fomento de la Pesca then in force.

Caveats

The order protects totoaba only and says nothing about vaquita or gillnets. It is a scanned 1975 page, so the text could only be read through OCR and some words are garbled.