For the first time ever the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has issued an Extinction Alert, the recipient is the vaquita porpoise. Recent surveys indicate that the vaquita porpoise, which lives in the northern section of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California), has a population of only 10 to 13 individuals. This is down from an estimate of 570 in 1997, a decline attributed to bycatch mortality as a result of entanglement in gillnets. The alert states that the only solution is to ban gillnets from the vaquita population range and transition fisheries to geartypes that do not present a bycatch risk for the porpoise.
Read the IWC Extinction Alert liked below.
Grave Concern for the Survival of the Vaquita Porpoise (iwc.int)