The endangered vaquita

National Geographic is reporting:

The recently declared extinction of the Chinese river dolphin has focused attention on the plight of another imperiled marine mammal--the world's smallest porpoise.

Found only in waters off Mexico, the vaquita [Phocoena sinus] may now be the most endangered of any whale or dolphin species, due to the animal's frequent and fatal entanglements in fishing nets, experts say.

The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), a conservation research group, estimates only 250 to 400 of the elusive marine mammals remain.

Those numbers, if accurate, mean the vaquita is on a trajectory toward extinction. The last full survey, conducted in 1997, estimated its total population at 567.

Ht to Xenogere.