FIRST VAQUITA RESCUED IN THE HOPES OF SAVING THE ENDANGERED SPECIES

A six-month-old vaquita calf was rescued in the Gulf of California by the Consortium for Vaquita Conservation, Protection, and Recovery (VaquitaCPR). The organisation was created to develop and implement an urgent conservation action plan aimed at preventing the species from going extinct. The vaquita is the smallest porpoise in the world, and also the most endangered cetacean at the moment, living only in the upper Gulf of California.

As part of the bold conservation plan by the Mexican government to save the endangered species, much planning by the team of scientists and conservationists went into the rescue, using visual search methods and acoustic monitoring.

Unfortunately, the marine mammal veterinarians on site observed that the calf started to show signs of stress, and it was released out of caution and returned to the spot it was found. Before its release, scientists took various tissue samples for analysis, which will be used for further research.

On November 4, a female was captured and subsequently died from complications. VaquitaCPR announced it would halt all further rescue attempts as of November 10. They now focus on conducting photographic identification of individual animals.