Critically Endangered

  In several separate enforcement actions, over 800 totoaba swim bladders were seized in April 2018 (see news article). An in-depth television news story on the illegal totoaba fishery and enforcement efforts was also released. On 12 April, shots were fired at the Sea Shepherd vessel M/V...

  On March 27 the Mexican Navy recovered a decomposed vaquita. A necropsy was conducted on April 4 and it was confirmed that the animal died from entanglement (see Necropsy Report).   The net removal effort continues [caption id="attachment_2800" align="alignright" width="300"] Bags of net and anchors being taken from...

  The net removal effort, started by Sea Shepherd’s Operation Milagro in collaboration with the Mexican Navy in 2015, is building to become the biggest yet in the totoaba season currently under way. The initial Sea Shepherd/Navy effort focused on observing pangas illegally setting nets at...

  The 10th meeting of CIRVA (Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita) was held at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, on 11-12 December 2017 and the final report of CIRVA-10 (which includes the report of a short meeting of CIRVA...

  Assessments or reassessments of 19 cetacean species, subspecies and populations were published on the IUCN Red List in 2017. These included all four species of humpback dolphin, the Irrawaddy dolphin, two species of finless porpoise, the South Asian River dolphin, the beluga, the narwhal, and...

  As mentioned in an article posted on this website on 8 February 2017, the construction of large dams in the mainstem of the Mekong River in Laos and Cambodia represents an existential threat to the small, Critically Endangered freshwater population of Orcaella brevirostris. Following the...

  Taiwanese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis taiwanensis) live in shallow nearshore waters along the west coast of Taiwan (= eastern Taiwan Strait). Researchers from Taiwan and elsewhere have been studying this small and declining population (currently < 75 individuals) since its discovery in 2002 (Wang et...