The vaquita is the world's most critically endangered marine mammal, with fewer than 10 individuals remaining. Bycatch in illegal gillnets is the sole cause of their imminent extinction.
The vaquita's situation represents the ultimate failure of animal welfare and conservation. Individual animals entangled in gillnets experience drowning — acute, prolonged suffocation in animals that must surface to breathe. The fact that this is driven by illegal trade in totoaba swim bladder means that vaquita suffering and extinction are entirely preventable harms resulting from inadequate law enforcement and demand for wildlife products. The 2017 rescue attempt demonstrated that captivity is not viable — the surviving animals cannot be protected except by protecting their habitat. Every vaquita that drowns in a gillnet represents a welfare harm compounded by irreversible ecological loss. This is the most urgent wildlife welfare crisis on earth.