VAQUITA PORPOISE

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Context: Vaquita porpoise, found in the Gulf of California in Mexico, is nearing extinction and immediate measures are needed to save the remaining population.

About Vaquita porpoise:

• It 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.
• The population of the species declined 98 per cent in two decades.
• Around 570 animals were recorded in 1999 and this fell to 10 animals in 2019.
• 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’.
• The vaquita population has been declining for decades due to bycatch in gillnets set to catch shrimp and fish and illegal fishing for international markets.
• The Mexican law prohibits the use of gillnets within the vaquita’s habitat in Upper Gulf of California and bans the catch

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/extinction-threat-vaquita-porpoise-global-population-down-to-only-10-82413