Extinction alert issued over endangered vaquita porpoise - BBC News

has issued its first ever Extinction

alert it says the vaquita porpoise is on

the verge of Extinction with only around

10 animals still surviving that the

world's smallest sea mammals and found

here on the Mexican Pacific Coast the

commission says the species can still be

saved if a ban on Gill net fishing is

fully enforced in the Gulf of California

Dr Lindsey Porter is the vice chair of

the scientific Committee of the

international whaling commission and

joins us now from Hong Kong this is very

sad news about the porpoise Lindsay can

you tell us more about this species

and yes thank you thank you for having

us on the show today

the purpose as you see is the smallest

Marine Mammal the smallest station in

the world it's tiny but it is also

absolutely gorgeous they are sometimes

called the panda of the sea because of

their dark rimmed eyes but they are

incredibly elusive so it makes it very

challenging for us to be able to count

them to understand how many there are

but what we do know is for the last five

years we've been consistently counting

approximately the around 10 individuals

and that is what has brought us to issue

this statement is that we are on the

very brink of Extinction and we need to

be able to act now to save this tiny

little cetacean species we're seeing

pictures of one of the uh mammals caught

up I think it must be a gill net that is

caught up in is this the reason Lindsay

that they've been dying over recent

years is it illegal fishing

yes it is illegal fishing and this is

the only threat that the vaquita faced

so unlike other cetaceans where there

may be problems from pollution or lack

of prey this is not the case with the

vaquita 100 it is bycatch and Gill Nets

that are set illegally for an endangered

fish species so just to clarify Gill

Nets at the moment are illegal

they are legalists but uh fishermen are

still using them that's part of the

issue

fishermen are still using them it is not

their intention to catch the vacation to

catch the Poor Boys it is their

intention to catch a fish species which

in itself is endangered so we have two

endangered species being impacted by

human activities here so we must get

those girl Nets out of the water not

just for the vaquita but also for the

fish species that it is targeting and

Lizzie if if there's only 10 of them

left is it possible to still save the

species with so few

yes we believe so at the international

whaling commission we have seen the

number of Poor Boys steady over the last

few years although a very small number

but this year we had a new baby poor

Poise so clearly they are still

reproducing we believe the population is

resilient and as bycatch and gel Nets is

the only threat otherwise their habitat

is pristine if we remove that threat

there should be nothing to stop the

population bouncing back Dr Lindsay

Porter with that warning and that advice

thank you very much for joining us

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