The Vaquita, as of February, 2017 is the world’s most endangered marine mammal (Morell, 2017). The small porpoise is found only in Mexico’s Gulf of California, and now faces extinction as only about 30 individuals of the species remain. Scientists determined this though the use of an acoustic survey the in the summer of 2016.
There is also new urgency to protect these mammals because there have been controversial plans to bring them into captivity for a breeding program. “The situation is completely out of control,” said Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, a cetacean expert at the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change in Ensenada, Mexico, and member of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, an international advisory group to the Mexican government. “Of course, there’s a risk in capturing the vaquitas. But it’s clear now that they will be killed [in gillnets] anyway.” (Morell, 2017) The species had gone down from 60 to just 30 in just the span of one year, but why are they dying out?
They’re dying out because they get trapped in illegal gillnets, which set to catch other endangered species and efforts to help make new nets that will not cause the death of these mammals has failed unlike attempts to help protect sea turtles. These efforts have failed largely because of the opposition who depend on the gillnets to capture totoabafish which can sell for up to $100,000 on the black market.
There has also been many talks about how the scientists plan to capture the Vaquitas in order to make it less stressful for them, like the use of bottlenose dolphins from the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program to spot them easier. Details are still to be worked out, but many scientists like Rojas-Bracho feel that this is the only way to protect these animals from extinction
Author: Sarika Ganguli
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