The vaquita is incredibly rare. With luck and a little help from us, their numbers could bounce back. Photo: Sea Shepherd
Every year, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society goes hunting. Not hunting with weapons for sport or sustenance, but hunting for sightings of one of the rarest cetaceans in the world: the vaquita porpoise. The results of the 2024 Vaquita Survey are in, and it’s both good and bad.
“Survey data shows between six-eight Vaquita were seen during the 2024 survey which is a decline from the eight-13 Vaquita seen in 2023,” Sea Shepherd wrote. “Unlike in 2023 no newly born calves were seen, but one healthy yearling was seen. Visual and acoustic efforts focused on waters in and around the Zero Tolerance Area (ZTA) which is regarded as a stronghold for the remaining vaquitas. Half of the nine sightings in 2024 were outside the ZTA proper and inside the ZTA extension area (EA).”
I say good and bad because although those results do indeed sound worrying, the area Sea Shepherd surveyed was only about 12 percent of the total area where vaquitas were seen in 2015, the first year the survey was done. The six to eight individuals is the minimum estimate, and according to Sea Shepherd’s math, there’s a 25 percent probability that the actual number might more like nine to eleven.
“Since vaquita move freely within the Vaquita Refuge, we must extend the survey using acoustic detection to determine where the vaquitas are going. Vaquitas outside the sanctuary provided by concrete blocks with hooks will need protection from ongoing gillnetting, vaquita’s only threat.”
The survey was done from May 5 to 26, 2024. Sea Shepherd members spent those three weeks in in a tiny part of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, where vaquitas are supposed to be relatively safe from fishing or other threats that have very nearly made them extinct.
“Sea Shepherd’s commitment to the Vaquita’s survival is absolute,” said Pritam Singh, Chairman and CEO of Sea Shepherd. “Along with the Mexican Government, we will re-double our efforts to protect this species, and in the coming weeks we will support [the Natural Protected Areas Commission of Mexico] CONANP as they deploy new technologies to help find Vaquita, bolstering our ability to defend the most endangered marine mammal on earth.”
The survey is now stretching into July and August in hopes of getting a more accurate estimate of the vaquita’s true numbers. And while it’s likely there are at least a few more, the vaquita is still in incredibly dire straits.
