The rarest of marine mammals: the vaquita, a species of porpoise. Photo source: Here & Now – Barbara Taylor / NOAA
Excerpts;
Experts said that at most only 22 vaquitas remain in the Gulf of California, where a grim, increasingly violent battle is playing out between emboldened fishermen and the last line of defense for the smallest and most endangered porpoise in the world…
Read Full Article; CBS News (03-07-2019)
Sea mammal on brink of extinction targeted by “mafias” in Baja, Mexico; CBS News (07-30-2018)
There’s a crisis going on in the Pacific Ocean as an innocent porpoise falls prey to money and greed. The Vaquita is only about 4 feet long, weighs less than 100 lbs and calls the waters off the coast of Baja, Mexico home. With fewer than 30 left, it’s the most endangered marine mammal in the world…
Fish Poachers Push Endangered Porpoises to Brink, Yale E360 (03-05-2016)
China’s lucrative black market for fish parts is threatening the vaquita, the world’s most endangered marine mammal. The porpoises, who live only in the Gulf of California, are getting caught up as bycatch in illegal gill nets and killed. Scientists fear the porpoise could vanish by 2018…
