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Only 30 vaquita porpoises left on the planet



There are only 30 vaquita porpoises – the world’s smallest porpoise – left on the planet, according to the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA). Between 2011 and 2015 the population of vaquita porpoises declined by 90%. Illegal fishing will gill nets is the main cause of their declining numbers. However, the vaquita porpoises are so rare that people in the fishing industry say that they don’t exist – they are mythical.

Vaquita porpoises lives in the Gulf of California, Mexico. In 2015 the Mexican government enacted a two-year ban on gill nets, but the law is not well enforced. CIRVA’s recent report documented finding 31 illegal gill nets in the vicinity of the vaquita’s home area during a 15-day survey of the region in October and November 2016.

A loophole in the ban on gill nets enables them to be used to catch corvina in legal fisheries, but these ‘disguise illegal totoaba fishing’ says CIRVA.

The temporary ban will end in April 2017. CIRVA recommends a permanent ban on gill nets and stronger enforcement of illegal gill net fishing. CIRVA also recommends that the vaquita porpoises should be placed in a temporary sanctuary until it’s safe to return them to their natural habitat.

Researchers tracking the vaquita porpoises use a grid of acoustic monitors embedded in the sea floor to count the population size. As the porpoises use echo-locators to communicate with each other, researchers compare the number of echo-location clicks heard underwater year-by-year to determine how many individual porpoises are left in the wild.

Vaquitas are shy and difficult to find, even with high-powered binoculars. Therefore researchers use trained dolphins from the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program to help find the vaquitas in the muddy waters. Dolphins are easier to see in the ocean than porpoises, because dolphins are larger and more social and playful. The researchers in boats can spot the dolphins, and the dolphins lead them to the elusive vaquita porpoises so that they can be observed, tracked, and monitored.

However, time is running out to save the vaquita porpoises. If numbers continue to decline rapidly there won’t be any left. Currently they are the world’s most endangered marine mammal in the world.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120188-worlds-most-endangered-marine-mammal-has-30-individuals-left/


MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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