Save the Critically Endangered Vaquita by Making Gillnet Ban Permanent
**Update: Three Dead Vaquitas Found**
According to the latest update from VIVA Vaquita Coalition on March 26, three dead Vaquitas have been found in just the past few weeks. Considering there are at best 100 of them left in the world, losing not one but three is a huge blow in the fight to keep them from becoming extinct.
Autopsies show lacerations, which indicate that the porpoises likely died from gillnet entanglements. This is the sad reality of illegal fishing, and why it’s so important to keep the pressure on the Mexican government to make the gillnet ban permanent. Please sign and share this petition.
Image by Sea Shepherd
There are only 50 to 100 Vaquita porpoises left in the world, and they are all concentrated in a tiny region in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico. They are the rarest marine mammal species, and the biggest threat to their existence is a gillnet, a fishing net in which they accidentally entangle themselves.
Due to Asia’s black market trade for the swim bladders of the endangered Totoaba fish, the Vaquita are tragically mere bycatches of this business. With such a delicately small population left, we cannot afford to lose any more of them.
2016 is the year that will decide whether they become extinct or not.