Conservation ...

The vaquita is the most critcally endangered cetacean on the planet (IUCN). It is found only in a small 900-mile radial pocket of the northern Gulf of California and most of what is known about this elusive, little porpoise has come from autopsy research and the occasional visual-acoustic survey. Although little is understood about their day to day lives, statisticians have been able to calculate that an unsustainable number of them drown accidentally each year in artisanal nets targeting sharks, rays, finfish, and shrimp. According to the latest scientific research, only a complete overhaul of fishing practices in the area would help to reverse this worrying trend.

In the last couple of years several government agencies and non government organizations have taken action to reduce the number of fishing boats operating in the vaquita's key habitat, but progress has been slow and according to one inside source, on the ground efforts have once again become bogged down in the quagmire of politics that have riddled this conservation issue for the last 30 years. Unless the government agencies and conservation organizations spearheading the recovery programme can successfully organize a coordinated fundraising effort to raise the remaining millions-of-dollars deficit needed to help fishermen switch to alternative livelihoods, the vaquita will become extinct in the near future.