
Vaquita Photo: Paula Olson, NOAA
Vaquita, a small porpoise found only in the Gulf of California, is the world’s rarest marine mammal, and is in imminent danger of extinction. Now, US Navy dolphins are being trained to locate vaquita in a last-ditch effort to catch and and protect the last few dozen of these critically endangered porpoises.
The vaquita weren’t discovered until 1958 and now are in danger of being wiped out by illegal gill-netting by fishermen in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. The vaquita are being caught and drowned in gill-nets set by fishermen trying to catch totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is a prized delicacy in China.