Case Study · Sea Shepherd · Sea of Cortez · 2019
In 2019 I made films with Sea Shepherd in the Sea of Cortez exposing the bycatch of illegal gillnets, which are pushing the vaquita, a critically endangered porpoise, towards extinction.
The vaquita is a small porpoise found only in the Sea of Cortez. Illegal gillnets set for totoaba catch and drown it as bycatch, and by 2020 fewer than ten were thought to remain.
The fishing that kills it happens far out of sight. The challenge was to make an almost invisible extinction visible.
The nets are the evidence. Every illegal gillnet pulled out of the refuge shows the bycatch it has already caused, so the films focus on the nets as much as on the porpoise.
Sea Shepherd patrols the Vaquita Refuge and has removed thousands of illegal gillnets since 2015. Filming that work put the audience on the boats, alongside the evidence, rather than asking them to imagine it.
In 2019 I made films with Sea Shepherd that expose the devastating bycatch of these illegal gillnets: the marine life that is caught and killed alongside the vaquita.
Fewer than ten porpoises left, and thousands of illegal nets removed: filming alongside Sea Shepherd made the case that saving the vaquita needs enforcement and global cooperation, now.
Filmmaker
Andrew Davies
Production company
Campaign Film Ltd
Partner
Sea Shepherd
Location
Sea of Cortez, Mexico
Email directly: hello@campaignfilm.com
I’ve filmed alongside Sea Shepherd in the Sea of Cortez, and I’m used to working light in remote, unpredictable locations.
If your organisation needs its frontline work on camera, tell me where and when.