The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has warned the critically endangered vaquita porpoise will likely disappear from the earth if immediate action isn’t taken to save it from extinction.
Just 10 to 13 individual vaquita remain alive, all in the Northern Gulf of California in Mexico, down from 570 in 1997, according to a survey released in June 2023.
The IWC was created in 1946 as a global body responsible for managing the conservation of whales and other cetaceans, including porpoises. On 7 August, the IWC Scientific Committee issued its first-ever extinction alert for the vaquita, a mechanism created to “encourage wider recognition of the warning signs of impending extinctions, and to generate support and encouragement at every level for the actions needed now to save the vaquita,” according to the group…