
Vaquita Photo: Paula Olson, NOAA
In 2017, we posted about an attempt to use Navy-trained dolphins in a last-ditch effort to capture and save the few surviving vaquita. The vaquita is a small porpoise found only in the Gulf of California that is in imminent danger of extinction. The project was abandoned when a captured vaquita died from the stress of capture. In 2017, fewer than 30 vaquita were left. Now the number is around 10.
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 to catch shrimp and fish. Researchers say the nets are the only known cause for the species’ catastrophic decline, but getting rid of them has turned out to be a challenge.