Posts Tagged ‘Vaquita’
Scientific Committee gives first ever official species extinction warning
Photo: Thomas Jefferson We have welcomed the urgent call by experts to protect the vaquita porpoise following the first ever official warning of the imminent extinction of a species by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) – the global body that regulates whale hunting, and conservation of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Its…
Read MoreDolphins to be used to locate highly endangered vaquita
According to reports from Mexico, the government there is to go ahead with plans to use dolphins trained by the US Navy to try to save the world’s most endangered marine species, the vaquita. Vaquita are the world’s smallest and one of the most endangered species of whale, dolphin or porpoise on the planet. Found…
Read MoreSo how was the IWC for you?
So IWC66 ends with a celebration of whale-themed ties, which, believe it or not, was won by a Japanese delegate. He was sporting a bright Moby Dick themed tie. so I guess that, as it’s a whaling themed tie, the individual concerned may be allowed back into Japan’s Far Seas Fisheries building where their whaling…
Read MoreMexico to ban gillnets in attempt to save the vaquita
Mexico has announced that it is to permanently ban the use of gillnets in the waters where the highly endangered vaquita is found, in an attempt to save the species from extinction. The vaquita, which translates from spanish as “little cow”, is a species of porpoise, whose numbers are thought to have dropped to around…
Read MoreWhaling commission voices grave concern over Maui’s dolphin future
Scientists from the International Whaling Commission have voiced their “grave concern” for the endangered Maui’s dolphin, a sub-species of the New Zealand dolphin. Estimates for the number of remaing dolphins range from 43 to 69 with one researcher, Dr. Liz Slooten, predicting there could be just a few individuals left within a couple of decades.…
Read MoreThe vanishing vaquita!
Things are not looking good for one of the smallest and most endangered dolphins. With less than 100 individuals thought to remain, a new report from the international vaquita recovery team (CIRVA) strongly recommends that the Government of Mexico enact emergency regulations establishing a gillnet exclusion zone covering the full range of the vaquita. If…
Read MoreA life-line for the smallest dolphin of them all?
Throughout its limited range of only a 48km radius in the northern end of the Gulf of California, the vaquita has been rapidly declining in numbers due to incidental entanglement in drift nets and less than 200 are thought to survive. Not only the smallest but possibly the most critically endangered cetacean of them all,…
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