Featured Image Credit: Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures
By Sarah Sharkey
A vaquita porpoise has been found dead by the Mexican Navy. The body was recovered in March of 2018 and it was the first vaquita to be found dead in 2018. A necropsy was done on the decomposing body on April 4th. The results confirmed that the animal died from entanglement.
The vaquita population is on the brink of extinction. With less than 30 animals left in the wild, it is devastating to see one die from entanglement.
An initial idea of rescuing the species included rounding up the remaining animals and keeping them safe in captivity, but that has been deemed not viable by the conservation experts. It would be difficult to round them up without hurting them and as vaquita have never been held in captivity, no one is quite sure hold to take care of them in the best way possible.
So, the experts have proceeded on the path of doing their best to keep these animals alive in the wild. The only way to possibly save this population of small porpoises is to remove the threat of death by entanglement. There is currently a huge effort to remove nets from the water until spawning season in May of 2018. It is hoped that the reduced number of nets will be the key to saving this species.
Learn more from our source here.