Three conservation groups have sued the U.S. Department of the Interior to force it into issuing sanctions against Mexico for its continued allowance of illegal totoaba fishing, which is threatens the critically endangered vaquita porpoise with extinction.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Animal Welfare Institute filed suit on Tuesday, 14 December arguing an “unreasonable delay” in the U.S. government’s response to a 2014 petition to sanction Mexico under the Administrative Procedure Act. According to the petition, Mexico’s failure to take effective enforcement action against the totoaba trade undermines the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)…