Vaquita

by Barry Kent MacKay

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Price

$650

Dimensions

24.000 x 30.000 x 0.250 inches

Title

Vaquita

Artist

Barry Kent MacKay

Medium

Painting - Oil On Compressed Hardboard

Description

The group of mammals that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises is call Cetacea, and the subject of my recent oil painting is the world’s smallest Cetacean, the Vaquita (Phocoena sinus), little porpoise that, at maturity, is less than five feet long. The Vaquita is found only in the waters at the northern end of the Gulf of California and is critically endangered, down to ten individual animals left, as of a 2022 estimate. The main threat to the species is another animal species found only in the Gulf of California, a large drum fish called the Totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), itself now an endangered species. I have shown a couple of them in the background. The problem is a demand by an Asian market for the swim bladders and meat of the Totoaba. The nets used to catch the fish caught, entangled and drowned the Vaquitas. The bladders are a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, and the bladders are mistakenly credited with treating fertility, circulatory and skin problems. Both Vaquita and Totoaba are protected, and work is underway to commercially raise the latter in fish farms, which potentially carry their own environmental risks. But there is not only poaching, but net captures of other marine life that still threaten both the Vaquita and the Totoaba. I felt that at least I could paint its picture, chasing squid in the shallows, an imagined scene based on a reality soon to leave us.

Uploaded

November 25th, 2022

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