'Aquatic Cocaine' Driving Tiny Porpoise To Extinction
'Aquatic Cocaine' Driving Tiny Porpoise To Extinction
Sep 26, 2016 @ 07:09 PM
Mallory Pickett ,
Contributor
The vaquita is a tiny, adorable porpoise that lives in Mexico’s Gulf of California. Less than five feet long and just 100 pounds, it’s about half the size of a bottlenose dolphin. Thick dark markings circle its mouth and eyes, giving it the cute/comical look of a kindergartener who got into his mother’s make-up.
This little cetacean is new to scientists: it wasn’t officially discovered until 1950, when an ecologist named Ken Norris found a tiny vaquita skull on the beach in Baja. After that first skull sighting it wasn’t until 1985, thirty years later, that a scientist actually saw one in the flesh.
But just as we are getting to know this elusive animal, we may already have to say goodbye. In 1997 the first comprehensive population survey counted just 567 vaquitas. This year, population surveys estimate only 60 vaquitas remain. It’s officially the world’s most endangered marine mammal.
Decades of fishing with gillnets—vertical, extremely effective fishing nets—is mainly responsible for the vaquita’s decimation. Around 2009 it seemed like progress was being made with new regulations and new research iniatives, but now there’s a new threat to the vaquita’s recovery: totoaba fish bladders.
More:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mallorypickett/2016/09/26/aquatic-cocaine-driving-tiny-porpoise-to-extinction/#2afdf2df136a
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Sometimes I think, only all the deplorable, violent, stupid, dishonest, psychopathic people would disappear, the animals and Nature might have a chance.
