The International Whaling Commission (IWC) recently released its first-ever extinction alert to warn of the potential danger facing the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. Its population has dramatically decreased from approx. 570 to 10 in a decade and the vaquita now hovers on the edge of extinction. This is mainly due to gillnets which although illegal since 1975 where the vaquita are, Mexico’s Gulf of California, the nets are still being used to capture the shrimp and totoaba fish that share a habitat with vaquita porpoises.
The IWC scientific committee believes the vaquita population has a chance of recovery if stronger enforcement is placed on the ban on gillnets in their habitat and if this doesn’t happen now, it will be too late despite a calf being seen during a survey this year as with such a small population, the gillnets will get them all in the end if they are not urgently removed.
The vaquitas have a 21-year lifespan and are the smallest species within the animal order Cetacea, which contains whale, dolphin and porpoise species.
