This is a story on how the laws in Mexican can drive you wacky. In this case,
we were putting together a story on what looked like a Mexican commercial fishing boat using a net to catch sardines. And dolphins and seals. The sardines were okay, its the dolphins and seals we were concerned about.

The story came our way through a viewer, Hillary Owens, who video taped the Lucia Jurarez, just off shore along the Baja coast near Ensenada. You can see the net encircling the seals and dolphins and the crew working the catch. But that wasn't enough proof for the authorities in Mexico. Even though we did have at least one witness, Eduardo Villegas, who had also seen the crew of the Lucia Juarez scooping up whatever it's net would entrap. They see this boat off the coast, close in, sometimes twice a day. Complaints have done no good.

When David Phillips of the Earth Island Institute saw the video, he told us he would contact some some activitsts who work with Mexican attorneys active in fighting this sort of behavior on the high seas. The plan would be to file a complaint with Mexican environmental authorities. PROFEPA, the enforcement arm of the Mexican environemntal agency, SEMARANT. Let's hope it does some good. When we showed the same video to Jose De Jesus Gallo Ramirez, who runs fishing oversight in Ensenada, he told us the video shows nothing.

Reporter Lauren Reynolds and photojournalist Michael Gonzalez went to Ensenda to find the captain of the sardine fisher. He was out to sea, supposedly for sometime. No where to be found. So we left word we would like to talk to him. Nothing yet.

The strange thing here is how the law conflicts. There are no specific provision in Mexican law about trapping dolphins by sardine fisherman. But the criminal code says harming a dolphin is a crime. But there is a quota for tuna fisherman to kill dolphins. Go figure.

jwblog@10news.com