The population of the world's smallest porpoise in the world, known as the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), continues to decline, with less than 60 individuals currently alive on the planet, a new report has revealed.
Considered as an endangered species, the vaquita porpoises are extremely rare and reside only in the northern Gulf of California in Mexico. They typically grow up to 5 feet long during maturity.
Despite the Mexican Navy's attempts to protect the vaquita, however, the marine animal's population has dropped from 245 to 60 — a loss of about 75.5 percent.
Without stricter policies, scientists say the vaquita could become extinct within the next six years.
Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, chair of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, says the precious native species is disappearing before our eyes. Rojas-Bracho, together with marine mammal expert Barbara Taylor, led a survey expedition to count the vaquitas in the gulf.
What is driving the vaquita's speedy disappearance? Experts say the demand for the swim bladder of a large fish called totoaba, which swims in the same area and is also an endangered species, is affecting the vaquita's population.
After being taken, the totoaba's swim bladder gets dried, smuggled across the border to California and then exported to China. There, it is considered a delicacy, and can sell for $10,000 per kilogram.
The vaquitas get entangled in the nets meant to catch the totoaba and drown. What's more alarming is that although researchers counted 60 individual vaquitas, this number was before the totoaba fishing season began.
Prior to the illegal totoaba trade, the vaquita has been endangered by long gill nets placed by local fishermen to catch finfish and shrimp. In 2015, Mexico set a two-year ban on the use of gill nets within the range of the vaquita.
Unfortunately, enforcement of the policy is not as aggressive as desired. An exception has even allowed fishermen to net the corvina drum, a saltwater fish found in South and Central America.
In March, poachers exploited the loophole and used fishing for corvina as cover for totoaba poaching. This resulted in three vaquita deaths.
"There's no margin for error if we're going to save the vaquita," says Atty. Zak Smith of the Marine Mammal Protection Project under the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Smith asserts that if the species has to make it to 2020, the Mexican government has to take responsibility.
Omar Vidal of the World Wildlife Fund, who has worked on vaquita conservation, says if the president of Mexico wants to save vaquitas, the only thing to do is to prohibit the fishing nets.
"There is no more time left to do anything else," says Vidal.
Photo: Colin Knowles | Flickr
