The vaquita is the world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean, but the handful still living in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California may be more resilient than recent headlines suggest.
In 2025, researchers concluded that there was a 67 percent probability that seven to ten distinct vaquitas had been observed in the study area. That was a count of animals seen, not an estimate of the species’ total remaining population. Researchers also found evidence that vaquitas are continuing to reproduce.
Dr. Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, one of the world’s leading vaquita experts and chair of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, joins Chris Clarke to explain why the species is not necessarily doomed by its small population. Surviving vaquitas appear healthy, continue to produce calves, and retain the genetic capacity to recover—if people stop killing them in gillnets.
The vaquita is also a desert porpoise. Its only habitat lies in a marine ecosystem made exceptionally productive by its desert setting. Evaporation, concentrated saltwater, tides, wind, and upwelling continually move nutrients through the Upper Gulf. Although the loss of Colorado River flow has profoundly changed the delta and harmed some species, Rojas-Bracho says there is no evidence that food scarcity or habitat degradation is driving the vaquita’s decline.
The principal threat is bycatch in gillnets used for shrimp, fish, sharks, and especially totoaba. Totoaba swim bladders command extraordinary prices in an illegal international market, bringing organized crime into a conservation problem already complicated by government resistance and the legitimate needs of fishing communities.
Saving the vaquita requires eliminating gillnet deaths while developing fishing gear and markets that allow Upper Gulf communities to make a living without driving another species to extinction.
About the Guest
Dr. Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho has studied the vaquita for decades and helped establish the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, known as CIRVA, which he has chaired since its creation. His research has addressed vaquita abundance, bycatch, genetics, habitat, fisheries policy, and the species’ prospects for recovery. He is affiliated with the National Marine Mammal Foundation and has worked extensively with Mexican and international scientists, conservation organizations, fishing communities, and government agencies.
Quotable Moments
“Vaquitas are strong animals. If you stop killing them, they will recover. It’s amazing how resilient they are.”
“I would be satisfied if I see the population trend being positive, or at least not declining. I can die peacefully if I see that.”
“We cannot be stupidly optimistic, but we are optimistic because the data shows that we can be optimistic.”
“I don’t want Mexico to be the country that loses the vaquita.”
“Don’t give up. That’s the worst thing.”
In This Episode
- Why seven to ten vaquitas observed does not mean only seven to ten exist
- How the vaquita became adapted to natural rarity
- Why genetic evidence shows that inbreeding does not necessarily doom the species
- How a desert evaporation basin creates an exceptionally productive marine ecosystem
- What ending Colorado River flow has—and has not—done to vaquita habitat
- How fisheries authorities used habitat degradation to deflect attention from bycatch
- Why totoaba gillnets are particularly deadly
- How the illegal swim-bladder trade brought organized crime into the Upper Gulf
- Why protecting vaquitas cannot mean abandoning fishing communities
- The need for effective vaquita-safe fishing gear and better markets for safely caught seafood
- What listeners can do to help
Resources
- Viva Vaquita — Background on the species, its habitat, the totoaba trade, conservation work, and current developments.
- Act Now for the Vaquita — Suggested actions include writing Mexican officials, supporting conservation work, making sustainable seafood choices, and avoiding shrimp and fish caught with gillnets.
- 2025 Vaquita Research Campaign report — The complete acoustic and visual survey report, including the seven-to-ten observation range, its statistical limitations, and evidence of continued reproduction.
- IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group: Vaquita — Scientific background, distribution, conservation status, and updates from cetacean specialists.
- CIRVA reports and archive — Reports from the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, including recommendations on eliminating gillnet mortality and developing viable fishing alternatives.
- The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression — The 2022 genomic study discussed in the episode. Researchers concluded that the vaquita’s longstanding natural rarity has reduced its burden of damaging genetic variation and that recovery remains possible if bycatch stops.
- Mexico must save the vaquita from gill nets — A 2024 Science commentary coauthored by Rojas-Bracho and other vaquita researchers.
- Bycatch in gillnet fisheries threatens Critically Endangered small cetaceans and other aquatic megafauna — A study coauthored by Rojas-Bracho placing the vaquita crisis within the worldwide threat that gillnets pose to small cetaceans and other marine animals.
Take Action
Visit Viva Vaquita’s action page for sample letters to Mexican officials and other ways to help. Seafood buyers can also ask where shrimp and fish were caught and whether gillnets were used. Public attention matters: it gives officials who want to protect the vaquita political support to act and makes continued inaction harder to ignore.
The vaquita’s situation is desperate, but extinction is not yet inevitable. The animals are still feeding, reproducing, and surviving. The remaining question is whether people will give them the opportunity to recover.
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