Vaquita porpoise faces extinction, warns whaling group

The 88-nation International Whaling Commission on Monday issued its first extinction for the vaquita porpoise, a species native to the northern Gulf of California off the coast of Mexico.

With a most size of 5 toes, the vaquita porpoise is the smallest species throughout the animal order Cetacea, which accommodates whale, dolphin and porpoise species.

Fishermen within the vaquita porpoise’s habitat nonetheless illegally use gillnets, partitions of netting hung vertically within the water column, with a view to catch shrimp and totoaba fish. The cetaceans get caught within the nets as bycatch.

In 1997, researchers estimated that 567 vaquita porpoises existed within the wild, per the IWC. By 2018, that quantity had plummeted to an estimated 9.

The IWC mentioned the species was not irretrievably doomed — as long as gillnet bans had been correctly enforced.

“The extinction of the vaquita is inevitable unless 100% of gillnets are substituted immediately with alternative fishing gears that protect the vaquita and the livelihoods of fishers. If this doesn’t happen now, it will be too late,” IWC scientists wrote on the conclusion of their alert.