Wildlife

The world’s smallest porpoise is on the brink of extinction

The world’s smallest porpoise is on the edge of extinction - but an environmental group has successfully reduced fishing in the protected areas it calls home. The tiny vaquita is the ocean’s rarest marine mammal.

The creatures - which never grow to more than 150cm in length - number between six and 20 in the wild, down from 200 in 2012. The protected species often become entangled and die in fishing nets cast to catch shrimp, finfish or totoaba. But a year of enforcement efforts have significantly reduced fishing in their habitat, the Mexican sea of Cortez. So far, it is unclear whether the efforts have increased vaquita population numbers.