Last-ditch attempt to save world's most endangered porpoise gets go-ahead

[sarahb 17,206]

An ambitious effort to save a diminutive porpoise called the vaquita has received the official clearance to move forward. The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is found only in Mexico’s Gulf of California, where there are just 30 of them left.

The project, which will use dolphins specially trained by the US Navy to corral as many vaquitas as possible so they can be put into protective pens in their natural habitat, also got the green light to start from the Mexican government.

The vaquita population has crashed over the past two decades. The first dedicated survey, in 1997, revealed that there were 567 individuals in the gulf — but by 2015, this figure had plummeted to just 59. The latest estimate, from 2016, suggests approximately 30 vaquitas remain.

The alarming decline is largely down to the porpoises drowning in gill nets set to capture huge, bass-like fish called totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi). So in 2015, the Mexican government banned the use of gill nets for two years and offered compensation to fishers.

Several designs of holding pen are being tested. The first pens will be up to 10 metres in diameter and up to 3 metres deep, and will keep the vaquitas away from gill nets, says Rojas-Bracho. If the plans succeed, a more permanent facility will be built. The scientists hope that the vaquitas will adjust to captivity and even breed in the pens.

Bold rescue operations have worked before: the last 27 California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) were taken into captivity in the 1980s, and their numbers grew enough for some condors born in captivity to have been released back into the wild.

The vaquita team hopes to learn from these experiences, but much is uncertain. “No one has ever tried to catch vaquita to keep them alive,” says Randall Wells at the Chicago Zoological Society in Illinois, and a member of the VaquitaCPR consortium. “There is so much of this that is being done for the first time. It’s all high risk.”

Others outside the project are hopeful. David Wildt, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington DC, thinks the rescue could work. He notes that it is a “huge challenge”, adding that there is “nothing to be lost, and lots to be gained”.

http://www.nature.com/news/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-world-s-most-endangered-porpoise-gets-go-ahead-1.21791


Lets hope this is successful  They're hoping to get the project underway by October. 

[Quasi 11,034]

AHHHHHH they look like lipstick wearing dolphin-beluga-hybrids! They're so beautiful, and I never even knew they existed. Let's hope this effort pays off and we see this stunning creature's population rise. 

[sarahb 17,206]

8 minutes ago, Quasi said:

AHHHHHH they look like lipstick wearing dolphin-beluga-hybrids! They're so beautiful, and I never even knew they existed. Let's hope this effort pays off and we see this stunning creature's population rise. 

Yeah they're seriously cute little things. Tiny too, they're smaller than a grown man (about 1.4 metres/55 inches long) 

[littlepotter 76,616]

1 hour ago, sarahb said:

Yeah they're seriously cute little things. Tiny too, they're smaller than a grown man (about 1.4 metres/55 inches long) 

Awww

[Dominic 11,922]

Aw it's nice to see some good news for once