The vaquita is the world's most endangered marine mammal with fewer than 20 individuals remaining, clinging to survival in the northern Gulf of California despite intensive conservation efforts.
Vaquita welfare in their final refuge zone involves the stress of ongoing illegal fishing activity and the threat of accidental entanglement. The VaquitaCPR experience demonstrated that even well-intentioned conservation intervention can cause fatal welfare harm to these highly sensitive animals. The remaining vaquitas face a welfare-conservation paradox: the only thing that can save them is eliminating all gillnet fishing in their refuge, but enforcement failures have made this goal elusive. Each entanglement death removes an irreplaceable individual from a population so small that every animal matters.