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More violence mars vaquita protection efforts This update summarizes net removals from March and news about continuing violence leading to another suspension of net removal efforts. On 13 March a dead vaquita was found in a net by the Sea Shepherd net removal team (more details...

Assessments or reassessments of 5 cetacean species, subspecies or populations were published on the IUCN Red List in March 2019. This is in addition to the 35 published in November 2018, 10 in July 2018, and 19 in November 2017. A total of 69 cetacean...

February 2019 Vaquita Update This update summarizes net removals from February and news that also includes the first half of March.  The Report of the 11th meeting of CIRVA is summarized in an earlier news item on this website.  On 13 March a dead vaquita was...

The report of the 11th meeting of the international vaquita recovery team (CIRVA), held in La Jolla, California on 19-21 February 2019, is now available. The report recommends a series of immediate, near-term, medium-term, and long-term actions to prevent extinction of the vaquita. It calls...

January was a month marked by the violent action of illegal fishermen directed toward people engaged in net removal efforts. Press releases including video of the attacks are available here for the January 9th attack and here for the January 31st attack. Men in multiple...

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara and Erich Hoyt, co-chairs of the IUCN SSC/WCPA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force have announced final results from the Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) Workshop in the North East Indian Ocean and South East Asian Seas which was held in...

December marks the beginning of totoaba spawning season.  As was done in the 2017/2018 spawning season, vaquita updates will be posted monthly.  In this first update, a recap of last season is given to provide context. The 2017/2018 totoaba spawning season had 400 active totoaba nets...

Assessments or reassessments of 35 cetacean species, subspecies or populations were published on the IUCN Red List in November 2018. This is in addition to the 10 new assessments published in July 2018, and 19  published in November 2017.  The updated assessments included a number of...

A field effort to obtain photographs and biopsies of vaquitas was carried out from the Museo de Ballena’s 130ft vessel, the Narval, plus several small boats (3 RHIBs and a panga) between 22 and 28 September 2018. Cell culture was supplied by the San Diego...

Assessments or reassessments of 10 cetacean species, subspecies or populations were published on the IUCN Red List in July 2018. This is in addition to the 19 new assessments that were published in November 2017. The updated assessments were all baleen whales, and included the...