Vaquita porpoise

In Context

According to the United States Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) Vaquita porpoise is nearing extinction and immediate measures are needed to save the remaining population .

• The population of the species declined 98 per cent in two decades.

Image Courtesy:DTE

About Vaquita porpoise

• The vaquita porpoise is the world’s smallest cetacean and the most endangered marine mammal. 
• It has the smallest range of any whale, dolphin or porpoise, and only lives in a small 1,500 square-mile area in Mexico’s upper Gulf of California, near the town of San Felipe. 
• It has a rounded head and black patches around its mouth and eyes.
  •  It only measures up to five feet in size.
•  It has been listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List as ‘critically endangered’. 

• Threats :
  • The vaquita population has been declining precipitously for decades due to bycatch in gillnets set to catch shrimp and fish, including totoaba — a large, endangered fish that is threatened by illegal fishing for international markets 
    • Totoaba is also protected under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
  • The Mexican government is failing to effectively enforce several environmental laws and as a result has caused the near extinction of the vaquita porpoise. 
    • Approximately only 10 vaquita remain.

DTE