Protected areas lacking protection due to impunity, reduced resources

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August 20, 2021

The Club de la Tortuga conservation group protects 18 kilometers of beach in Telchac Puerto. Club de la Tortuga de Telchac Puerto

High levels of impunity for environmental crimes and budget cuts at two federal government institutions are heightening the risks faced by Mexico’s flora and fauna in areas where they are supposed to be protected.

As is the case for many crimes committed in Mexico, the impunity rate for environmental offenses is well above 90%, a situation that emboldens environmental plunderers and encourages others to join in.

According to data obtained by the newspaper El Universal, the Commission for Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) registered 4,264 environmental crimes in 182 natural protected areas (ANPs) between 2006 and 2020.

The commission only followed up on 834 of those crimes – which included offenses such as removal of vegetation, illegal fishing, illegal construction and illegal logging – and referred 643 to the federal environmental protection agency Profepa.

It resolved only 50 of the crimes, meaning that 94% of all offenses referred to it went unpunished, while the impunity rate for all crimes committed in ANPs over the past 15 years was just under 99%.

Economic development is a threat to turtles in Telchac Puerto, Yucatán. club de la tortuga telchac puerto

The fact that such rampant impunity flourishes in ANPs is perhaps not surprising given the generalized impunity that plagues Mexico. But it is definitely concerning given that – as academic and Conanp board member Enrique Jardel puts it – the areas are “one of the main instruments to conserve habitats and biological diversity, and maintain environmental purposes such as the protection of catchment areas, the storage of water and climate regulation.”

In addition to the previously mentioned environmental crimes, commercial agriculture including cattle ranching, mining and tourism development are all encroaching on ANPs, and having a negative impact on them.

Authorities invariably favor economic development over the protection of natural resources in ANPs, Jardel said.

One example is the case of Telchac Puerto, a Yucatán port town and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico 40 kilometers east of Progreso where sea turtles nest on an 18-kilometer-long stretch of coastline. High-end tourism development and residents pose a threat to the municipality’s natural environment and wildlife, according to Minerva Cano, a biologist and leader of a local turtle conservation group.

“The tourist area is very urbanized, … [with] poorly planned construction on [or near] the beach and the dunes,” she told El Universal. “They erode the coastline and denude the dunes, affecting [turtles’] nesting.”

Cano also said that large lights on fishing boats and other vessels “completely disorient the turtles” and prevent them from returning to sea. Many end up dying, she said, adding that young people who drive all-terrain vehicles along the beach also pose a threat to nesting turtles and their eggs.

In addition, local people in precarious economic situations fish and hunt turtles to eat and sell, she said. Those illegal practices are seldom punished.

One example recounted by El Universal was the discovery earlier this year of the decapitated head of a Hawksbill sea turtle on the beach in Telchac Puerto. Its body and shell were nowhere to be found and the sand on which the head lay was stained red with blood, the newspaper said.

Such a crime in an ANP is punishable by up to 12 years’ imprisonment and a fine as high as 564,000 pesos (US $27,600) but as is all too common in Mexico, no one was held accountable. There is no justice in such crimes, members of Cano’s turtle conservation group said, unless a culprit is caught in the act with a knife in one hand and the slain reptile in the other.

Another example of the rampant impunity for crimes against wildlife is a 2016 case in which a trophy hunter posed for photos with a protected species of crocodile he killed in the Xcalak Reefs National Park in Quintana Roo.

The case – like hundreds of others – was referred to Profepa but went unresolved. The agency has given a vague explanation for its extremely limited success in holding environmental criminals to account, saying it has been unable to prosecute many offenses due to “insurmountable material obstacles.”

The El Universal report also indicated that justice – in the few cases in which it is served – is highly selective: a small-plot farmer transporting illegally-felled timber on donkeys is more likely to face punishment than the armed criminals who cut down the trees.

A turtle swims near a beach in Yucatán. club de la tortuga telchac puerto

Achieving justice in cases of environmental crimes – arresting perpetrators and obtaining court sentences against them – requires monetary resources, but both Conanp, which manages sea and land ANPs covering some 90 million hectares, and Profepa have suffered budget cuts in recent years.

El Universal reported that both institutions reached a budget “peak” in 2016, with the former receiving 1.35 billion pesos (US $66.1 million) and the latter 960 million pesos (US $47 million).

By 2020, Conanp’s annual budget had fallen to 860 million pesos, a 36% decline in four years, while that of Profepa dropped 18% to 790 million pesos.

Eduardo Vega, an economics professor at the National Autonomous University, wrote about such budget cuts in a paper entitled The Budgetary Erosion of Mexican Environmental Policy.

The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources and the government bodies that depend on it have faced severe cuts that amount to a budget collapse, he wrote. In real terms, funding was cut 63.7% between 2015 and 2018 and a further 26% between 2018 and 2020, Vega said.

President López Obrador, who talks up his environmental credentials but has faced criticism in the area, presided over the most recent cuts, while Enrique Peña Nieto was in office when the earlier ones occurred. A failure to adequately protect the critically-endangered vaquita marina porpoise is seen as one environmental shortcoming of the current government.

Vega wrote that there is clear evidence that the environmental budget cuts have caused “virtual ineffectiveness in many of the important areas of public action on environmental matters.” The lack of protection of flora and fauna in Mexico’s ANPs is one example of that.

“The cuts began in the middle of the previous six-year term of government and with the present administration there have been cuts over cuts, leading to increasingly precarious [environmental] conditions,” said Jardel, the Conanp board member.

“It seems that [the authorities] see [the ANPs] as obstacles to economic development,” he added.

With reports from El Universal

Journalist shot and killed in attack by commando in Veracruz

By

Rose Egelhoff

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August 20, 2021

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Reporter and radio host Jacinto Romero, 61, was killed by a commando Thursday morning in Ixtaczoquitlán, just outside the city of Orizaba, Veracruz.

The attackers shot Romero around 10:45 a.m. as he was driving from his home in the community of Potrerillo on his way to work. The journalist wrote and hosted for the radio station Ori Stereo 99.3 FM.

Romero was described as an affable, old-school reporter who loved animals and spoke out in support of health workers during the pandemic. In his column, called “The Dwarf of Tapanco,” he gave his own wordy take on local politics.

In early March of this year, Romero said he had received threats after covering abuses committed by local police. The case in question involved an officer who shot a horseback rider at a 15th birthday party in Texhuacan. The officer turned out to have political connections: his aunt was the Texhuacan chief administrator.

After his coverage, he received WhatsApp messages tell him to “stop writing bullshit,” and “don’t mess with my people,” threatening to “come for him.”

Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García assured the public that the government was on the case.

“Intimidation of the population, and of journalists in particular, will not be permitted. Any attempted crime won’t go unpunished,” he wrote on Facebook.

The region is known for forced disappearances and narco-violence. In Ixtaczoquitlán in 2019, at least 13 people detained by the municipal police were not seen again. At least 30 people have disappeared in the Montañas Altas region, where Ixtaczoquitlán is located, since April of that year.

Just days before Romero’s death, on August 11, armed men blockaded roads in the area after two presumed cartel members were arrested. The incident left four people dead. The next day, rumors circulated in local WhatsApp groups that a journalist had been kidnapped. A state journalists’ organization contacted Romero to make sure he was alright, and he responded affirmatively.

His death makes him the 26^th journalist killed in Veracruz since 2011 and the sixth killed this year in Mexico, a country known for violence against journalists. According to the freedom of information advocacy organization Article 19, at least 141 Mexican journalists have been killed because of their work since 2000, not including Romero.

With reports from E-Veracruz, Reuters and AVC Noticias

Homicide numbers continue to show a slight decline year-on-year

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MND Staff

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August 20, 2021

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crime scene — Efforts to curb homicides are concentrated on the 50 most violent municipalities.

The modest decline in homicides recorded in the first six months of 2021 continued in July, according to data presented Friday by the country’s head of security.

Homicides decreased 3.5% between January and June compared to the same period of last year, while they fell 3.9% annually in July, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez told reporters at the morning press conference.

However, the number of homicide victims last month – 2,846 – was up almost 7% over June numbers.

Rodríguez highlighted that 50.4% of the 19,788 homicides in the first seven months of the year occurred in just six states: Guanajuato, Baja California, Michoacán, Jalisco, México state and Chihuahua.

Guanajuato, where several criminal groups including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel operate, has been the country’s most violent state in recent years, while Baja California, and especially its largest city – Tijuana, has long been a hotbed of cartel violence.

The security minister noted that the government has now adopted a bolstered security strategy in the country’s 50 most violent municipalities.

“Since July 20, this strategy to increase [the number of] priority municipalities from 15 to 50 began,” Rodríguez said.

“… Focused actions are now being carried out” in those municipalities, she said, explaining that intelligence operations and the deployment of the military and other security forces have been strengthened.

Still in its infancy, the broadened strategy has not yet yielded the results the government is seeking as the 50 most violent municipalities – a list headed by Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and León – remain marred by murders, although some recorded declines last month.

Rodríguez said that 46% of all homicides in July occurred in the 50 priority municipalities. She also presented data that showed that a range of crimes declined in the 12-month period to the end of July compared to the final year of the government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who left office at the end of November 2018.

Robberies on public transit and vehicle theft both declined almost 40%, cattle theft fell 33%, carjackings decreased 31%, burglaries and muggings both dropped 26% and business robberies were down 21%.

In contrast, extortion rose 28%, human trafficking was up 37%, reported rapes increased 29%, domestic violence surged 36% and femicides – the killing of women and girls on account of their gender – rose almost 14%.

On a more positive yet still tragic note, Rodríguez reported that the number of femicides in July – 66 – was the lowest monthly total since the government took office almost three years ago.

“Be that as it may, we’re maintaining coordination with state authorities so that this crime is penalized and whoever commits it doesn’t go unpunished,” she said.

The security minister also said that kidnappings were down 54% in July compared to the government’s first month in office.

She asserted that the government’s crackdown on fuel theft has generated an estimated saving of almost 162.3 billion pesos (US $8 billion) and that security forces over the past year prevented the loss of almost 18 billion pesos at highway toll plazas, which are frequently overrun by criminals and protesters.

Rodríguez added that the Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit has blocked more than 41,000 suspect bank accounts containing 14.3 billion pesos since the government took office.

Mexico remains mired in near record levels of violence but the security minister said that “persistent, daily work” by the federal government in collaboration with state and municipal authorities is “yielding results that allow us to say that we’re making progress on the path toward the construction of peace.”

Mexico News Daily

Mayor calls anti-smoking measure excessive, says police have other things to do

By

Rose Egelhoff

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August 20, 2021

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Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum spoke out on Thursday against a new smoking prohibition on Madero Street, calling it excessive.

Dunia Ludlow, chief of the Historic Center Authority, announced the measure on Tuesday, saying that after a month of awareness-raising, full enforcement would begin in September. Under the new rule, auxiliary police can impose fines of up to 2,688 pesos (US $134) for rule-breakers who light up along the historic avenue.

Mayor Sheinbaum said she only found out about the measure when it came out in media reports.

“It was not something that we established, it was an initiative of the Historic Center Authority. I’m not criticizing it but I don’t think it is worth it,” she told reporters.

She expressed concern that enforcement of the rule would take police away from more important tasks.

No smoking allowed on iconic Madero Street.

“I believe that health comes first, but this seems excessive to me … the police need to focus on what they need to focus on, not on sanctioning people who smoke,” she said.

She did not say if she would take any action to block the measure, and the new anti-smoking signage remains in place on Madero Street.

With reports from Expansión Política

Federal deputy arrested in sexual assault case after immunity removed

By

Rose Egelhoff

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August 20, 2021

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Saúl Huerta, the federal deputy accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy, is in custody after voluntarily surrendering to police early Thursday morning.

The Morena party legislator, who represents a district in Puebla, allegedly raped the boy in a Mexico City hotel in April. Huerta was briefly arrested after the boy reported the assault but was released just a few hours later due to his congressional immunity.

After numerous delays, Huerta’s immunity was revoked on August 11. The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office requested a warrant for his arrest the same day. But then another problem came up: although Huerta was considered a flight risk and authorities were monitoring his movements, they lost track of him.

Finally, authorities and Huerta’s legal representatives agreed to his surrender to police at a place of his choice, a building in the Roma Sur neighborhood of Mexico City. He was arrested on the charge of rape, but also faces accusations of aggravated sexual abuse.

Later Thursday afternoon, Huerta appeared before a judge who ruled that the accused will go to trial and remain in custody for the next three months, during which time an investigation of the alleged crimes will be carried out.

The defense did not object to the judge’s ruling, saying that they too seek time to investigate and find evidence for Huerta’s defense. Defense lawyer Rafael Castillo added that at one point the victim’s family asked for money, a point that the team believes could play in their client’s favor.

“They made an economic petition for 1.32 million pesos [US $65,000] for what had happened, so I think we can see the victim’s intention in this matter,” Castillo said.

For his part, the victim said in a May interview that he seeks justice.

“What I want right now is justice. All I want is for there to be no more victims,” the boy said.

With reports from Milenio

Hurricane Grace bearing down on Veracruz; strengthening to Category 2 predicted

By

Tony Richards

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August 20, 2021

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The forecast track of Hurricane Grace on Friday. us national hurricane center

Tropical Storm Grace has regained strength and was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane Friday morning as it crossed the southern Gulf of Mexico in the direction of the state of Veracruz.

The latest weather advisory from the National Water Commission (Conagua), issued at 10:00 a.m. CDT, put Grace 250 kilometres northeast of the city of Veracruz and 325 kilometres east of Tuxpan with maximum sustained winds of 140 kmh and gusts up to 165.

Forecasters predict the hurricane will strengthen to Category 2 and make landfall this evening or tonight between Tecolutla and Barra de Nautla, 135 kilometres west-northwest of the city of Veracruz.

A hurricane warning remains in effect between the city of Veracruz and Cabo Rojo and a tropical storm warning between Cabo Rojo to Barra del Tordo, Tamaulipas.

Conagua said torrential rainfall can be expected in regions of Puebla and Veracruz, with accumulated totals between 150 and 250 millimetres. Intense rains are predicted in Chiapas, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Tlaxcala.

hurricane grace — Grace is predicted to move over the Veracruz coast between Tecolutla and Barra de Nautla.

Waves three to five meters high are forecast for the coast of Veracruz.

Grace made landfall early Thursday morning near Tulum, Quintana Roo, and crossed the Yucatán Peninsula into Yucatán as a tropical storm Friday morning.

Neither state reported casualties or any serious damage.

The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) said 150,000 customers on the peninsula were without power after it was cut off as a precautionary measure.

In Mérida, the power went off about 1:00 p.m. Thursday according to one CFE customer and didn’t come back on again until 11:00 p.m.

Mexico News Daily

US extends land border closure for another month due to rising coronavirus numbers

By

MND Staff

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August 20, 2021

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A vaccination center in Nuevo León, one of the border states where the process has been accelerated in the hopes of reopening the US border.

The United States has announced another month-long extension to the closure of its land borders with Mexico and Canada to nonessential traffic as all three countries record rising coronavirus case numbers.

“To minimize the spread of #Covid-19, including the delta variant, the United States is extending restrictions on nonessential travel at our land and ferry crossings with Canada and Mexico through September 21, while continuing to ensure the flow of essential trade and travel,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Twitter on Friday.

“In coordination with public health and medical experts, DHS continues working closely with its partners across the United States and internationally to determine how to safely and sustainably resume normal travel,” it added.

The United States land border has remained closed to nonessential travel from Mexico since early last year. Mexico also banned nonessential land travel from the United States but numerous reports have indicated that the rule is not always enforced. It eased restrictions last April, allowing people to cross the border for nonessential reasons in states where the coronavirus risk level was medium yellow or green low on the coronavirus stoplight map.

Three of the six northern border states – Baja California, Chihuahua and Coahuila – are currently yellow on the map, while Sonora and Tamaulipas are high risk orange and Nuevo León is maximum risk red.

Mexico has been pushing for a reopening of the border with the United States, and prioritized the vaccination of residents of border communities to that end.

However, Mexico’s ever-climbing vaccination rate – more than six in 10 adults have received at least one shot – has failed to stem a growing third wave coronavirus outbreak fueled by the highly contagious delta variant. More than 23,000 new cases were reported Thursday, while a new single-day record of almost 29,000 cases was set Wednesday.

The United States’ decision to extend the closure of its land borders with Mexico and Canada – which has also seen an uptick in case numbers despite a high vaccination rate – recognizes the dangers posed by the easily transmitted delta strain. Only 51% of Americans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

The decision contrasts with that of Canada, which has reopened its land border to nonessential United States travelers who are fully vaccinated and thus far less likely to be infected with and spread the virus.

The almost 18-month-long closure of the United States’ southern border travelers has dealt a heavy blow to many businesses in U.S. border towns and cities that brought in significant revenue in pre-pandemic times from consumers who live south of the border. In turn, businesses in Mexican border cities have benefited as locals spend at home rather than across the border.

When the U.S. eventually does open its land borders it, like Canada, is likely to require visitors to be vaccinated. It already requires people arriving by air to show a negative Covid-19 test result before boarding flights.

Mexico has not imposed any restrictions on incoming travelers, a policy that has helped the recovery of the tourism sector but has also been blamed for fueling coronavirus outbreaks in tourism hotspots such as Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur.

Mexico News Daily

NGO questions efficiency of social programs in light of new poverty numbers

By

MND Staff

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August 19, 2021

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Mexican children in poverty — The NGO Citizen Action Against Poverty says the government's much-lauded social programs are not functioning as well as officials say they are.

Two weeks after official data showed that there are an additional 3.8 million Mexicans living in poverty, a non-governmental organization has criticized the federal government’s central strategy to combat the problem.

President López Obrador’s government of almost three years has implemented a range of programs designed to alleviate poverty, including a tree-planting employment scheme and a youth apprenticeship scheme. It has also raised seniors’ pensions as part of its efforts to reduce high levels of poverty nationwide.

But figures compiled by Coneval, the federal agency that measures social development, show that the number of people it classified as poor rose to 55.7 million people, or 43.9% of the population, in 2020, up from 41.9% in 2018.

Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza (Citizen Action Against Poverty), an NGO, believes that the much-lauded social programs are not functioning as well as the government says they are and that a new approach to combatting poverty is needed.

“The remedy is not social programs that minimally alleviate poverty but don’t combat its causes,” the organization said in a statement.

fruit market — Citizen Action Against Poverty recommends that Mexico increase the minimum wage to cover the cost of two basic food baskets in urban areas by 2024.

“Miracles can’t be expected of these programs,” Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza (ACFP) said, adding that a comprehensive, multi-year plan is needed.

The plan, it added, should be based on a formula of “dignified work with labor rights and sufficient remuneration” and a system of universal social protection that is not reliant on one’s work situation. The first priority of such a system is universal healthcare, ACFP said.

For many Mexicans, low incomes and the lack of access to social security are the major drivers of poverty, said the organization’s chief, Rogelio Gómez Hermosillo.

“It’s time to stop thinking about the matter and grab the bull by the horns and go to the root of poverty,” he said.

Along with two other ACFP officials, he presented a “Mexico without poverty” formula at a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

It consists of 10 immediate actions aimed at improving people’s incomes, making progress toward greater respect for labor rights and building a universal social protection system.

Free medical care in Mexico — For many Mexicans, the NGO said, the lack of access to social security is a major driver of poverty.

To improve incomes, the ACFP proposed four immediate actions:

The approval of a multi-year plan by the National Minimum Wage Commission aimed at a gradual increase of the minimum wage (currently 142 pesos, or about US $7 per day) so that it covers the cost of two canastas básicas, or basic food baskets, in urban areas by 2024 at the latest. At current prices, the minimum salary would have to increase to about 7,500 pesos (US $370) per month.
Legislation for the establishment of employee profit-sharing schemes that function as productivity bonuses.
The establishment of a social economic policy that allows cooperatives and collectively-owned social sector companies to attract investment and access development bank loans at preferential interest rates in order to help them grow.
Adjustment of the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme so that it supports greater numbers of Mexico’s most disadvantaged young people.

To make progress toward greater respect for labor rights, the ACPF proposed three immediate actions:

Acceleration of the implementation of the 2019 labor reform, especially with regard to the functioning of the new labor justice system, the legitimization of collective contracts and the democratic election of union leaders.
Strengthening of the Labor Ministry’s inspection and sanctioning capacity in order to combat business models based on the violation of labor rights.
Compliance with the labor rules outlined in the three-way free trade pact known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as well as those stipulated by international organizations.

To begin the construction of a universal social protection system, three immediate actions were recommended:

The allocation of adequate public funds to provide free healthcare to all Mexicans. (In an executive summary to its 2020 poverty report released earlier this month, Coneval described as urgent the need for the healthcare system to transition fully to the Insabi health care service, introduced by the current federal government to replace Seguro Popular, and guarantee healthcare attention to the public.)
Approval of a constitutional reform to establish a national childcare system, and allocation of sufficient funds to create 100,000 additional places in daycare centers.
Payments to people who have lost their source of income due to emergency situations such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (Coneval said the pandemic was mainly responsible for the rise in the number of Mexicans living in situations of poverty.)

Youths building the future — The Youths Building the Future program needs to support more of Mexico’s most disadvantaged young people, the NGO said. file photo

Mexico is the 15th biggest economy in the world in terms of GDP, but the distribution of wealth among citizens is notoriously unequal. The López Obrador administration has made helping the nation’s poor a priority but has offered virtually no additional financial support to citizens regardless of their wealth during the pandemic, which last year precipitated Mexico’s worst economic slump since the Great Depression.

The president earlier this month rejected the Coneval data that showed that almost 4 million additional Mexicans had fallen into poverty on his watch and asserted that most sectors of the economy are recovering from the pandemic-induced recession.

“… I have, for example, my own method of measurement … I see the macroeconomic data,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning press conference on August 6.

“I have other information and I believe the people are receiving more support, and even with the pandemic, people have enough for their basic needs, and something very important, they have not lost faith and we’re moving ahead.”

Mexico News Daily

Vampire bats’ maligned reputation hinders efforts at conservation

By

Shannon Collins

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August 19, 2021

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Bats have historically inhabited a shadowy place in the human imagination, and none more so than Desmodus rotundus, the common vampire bat.

Media portrayals of vampire bat attacks, riffing on Bram Stoker-esque language, represent bats as bloodsucking monsters, terrorizing cattle and human populations alike. Dr. Rodrigo A. Medellín, a unique individual widely known as the Bat Man of Mexico, has a different opinion.

“Vampire bats are a fascinating result of evolution, and we’ve learned a great deal about them and their contribution to biome health, as well as human medicine,” he said.

Even so, the widespread, pervasive effect of media misrepresentation is threatening the conservation of this misunderstood critter.

Beyond their sinister name, vampire bats are, in fact, a largely unassuming species.

“We’ve learned a great deal about them and their contribution to biome health,” says bat researcher Rodrigo A. Medellín, seen here with a non-vampire bat. UNAM

Found mostly in the tropical regions of Mexico, as well as in other parts of Central and South America, vampire bats have a number of positive roles to play in everyday ecology. Bats of all varieties, including the vampire bat, play a crucial role in the biodiversity of a range of ecosystems across Mexico.

High on the list is their role as key seed dispersers and pollinators of many desert and tropical plants, including fruit trees, dozens of types of cacti and many kinds of agave plants. This vegetation plays an important role as habitats for a variety of other species, so changes in bat populations necessarily have an indirect biodiversity ripple effect.

And at present, for vampire bats in Mexico, things would seem to be on the upswing. For most wildlife, biodiversity loss and habitat degradation has a detrimental effect, but bats are a generalist species, with high ecological plasticity; in other words, they are adaptable and can change their environment according to necessity.

But with rising global temperatures altering landscapes across the globe, the distribution of the vampire bat in Mexico is changing, with further changes predicted under all climate change scenarios. In general, the transfer of dense tropical forest to grassland for the grazing of cattle favors the expansion of the distribution of this opportunistic creature, a feeder particularly fond of environments modified by humans, where there is a loss of native plant cover and abundant livestock are concentrated in small areas.

These days, bats are most vilified with regard to their negative contributions to public health through the transmission of disease; in Mexico, they are especially demonized as carriers of bovine paralytic rabies.

In terms of vampire bats acting as rabies vectors, however, “We all know that we created the problem,” says Medellín, a professor of ecology and conservation at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and a National Geographic Explorer at Large whose work focuses on bat conservation.

Bela Lugosi in Dracula — Humans’ largely unwarranted fear of vampire bats is mainly due to years of their use in the media as figures of horror.

“When the Europeans came to this continent in the early 1500s with cattle and horses and pigs, we ‘set the table’ for the opportunistic vampire bats, whose populations expanded greatly. Vampire bats are just one more element in this ecosystem.”

More broadly, Medellín argues that parasitic feeders, such as bats and other native wildlife that concentrates around cattle grazing areas, often become easy scapegoats for the spread of diseases, when there are a number of underlying structural issues in agricultural management that are far more culpable for the voracious spread of the disease — more so than a single species could ever be.

Medellín says that he has “never worked harder than in the past 18 months to defend bats right now from unsubstantiated accusations that [they] gave us Covid. While there are closely related viruses in bats, the Covid virus is categorically not a descendant of the bat viruses.”

Indeed, while scientific evidence suggests that the virus could have transmitted from an animal carrier to the human population, there is currently no evidence that definitively identifies any species as the origin, nor do genomic similarities between other coronaviruses in bats and the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus necessarily indicate bats as the origin.

Similar species prejudice plays into the continued persecution of vampire bats in Mexico, both intentionally and unintentionally, as a result of their role as vectors of bovine rabies.

While annual losses to the livestock industry as a result of rabies are valued at around US $23 million, there are a number of measures that can be introduced to manage the risk of bovine rabies without needlessly culling bat populations. It has been estimated, for example, that vaccinating cattle would bring six times greater rewards than the outlay costs for medication.

Follow Mexico's 'Bat Man' on a Search for Vampire Bats | Short Film Showcase

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Meanwhile, the cost of trying to control vampire bat populations has proved significantly higher than the benefits, not to mention the fact that senselessly attempting to lower bat populations with no consideration of the wider implications will have no immediate benefits for the environment, or even for the likelihood of bovine rabies spread.

It is, however, the easy way out to sensationalize the risk that bats pose as a way of masking issues inherent in the management of livestock across the country, inconsistent levels of rabies vaccination as well as cattle density, to name but a couple. It is easy to ascribe negative traits to creatures that already have a bad rap — think sharks, scorpions, spiders — but when a negative image threatens species conservation, the need to alter public perception becomes urgent.

“Obviously the antidote exists,” says Medellín, “and it is called information. These days, we have more information at our disposal than ever before in human history. But it is so easy to follow false lines of thought — in this case, that many ‘scientists’ have accused bats of giving us Covid, in the process making a ton of money.

“Only through promoting real information and sharing it with journalists, educators, decision-makers [and] the general public can we hope to turn the tide and do justice to these unsung heroes: the bats.”

Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.

Grace now a tropical storm as it crosses Yucatán toward Gulf of Mexico

By

Tony Richards

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August 19, 2021

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A beach in Quintana Roo Thursday morning.

Tropical Storm Grace was delivering rain and wind as it made its way across the state of Yucatán Thursday afternoon and was expected to emerge in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday night.

At 4:00 p.m. CDT it was located in the municipality of Halachó, about 80 kilometers southwest of Mérida, and heading west at 24 kmh with maximum sustained winds of 85 kmh.

There was some flooding and power outages but no damage as of Thursday afternoon.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center forecasts that Grace will reintensify as a hurricane and make a second landfall, this time on the coast of Veracruz, late Friday or early Saturday.

A hurricane warning remains in effect from the port of Veracruz to Cabo Rojo and tropical storm warnings from Tulum to Campeche and from north of Cabo Rojo on the mainland to Barra del Tordo, Tamaulipas.

Grace struck Quintana Roo 15 kilometers south of Tulum as a hurricane with 112 kph winds at 4:40 a.m. CDT on Thursday, and departed five hours later as a Yucatán-bound tropical storm.

Nos reportan bajantes de agua de los cerros en el municipio de #Tekax y en #Xul, comisaría de #Oxkutzcab, debido al paso de #Grace, que han dejado calles inundadas, personal de @procivy y de la @sspyuc ya se encuentran apoyando a las familias en todo lo que necesiten. pic.twitter.com/Al1QxGEL5V

— Gobierno de Yucatán (@GobYucatan) August 19, 2021

The Category 1 hurricane did little damage and caused no casualties, Governor Carlos Joaquín reported.

In advance of the hurricane’s arrival, 337 people were evacuated from their homes in Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Tulum as a precautionary measure. There were 78 calls to emergency during the storm, mostly for downed trees, power lines and billboards.

The Federal Electricity Commission reported that 180,429 customers were without power during the storm.

Sixty-six flights in and out of Cancún airport were canceled on Wednesday, but flights resumed Thursday at 11:00 a.m., airport officials said.

Mexico News Daily