Report: 5th Meeting of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA)

Despite all efforts made to date, the most recent acoustic data show the vaquita population to be declining at 18.5% per year. The best estimate of current abundance is 97 vaquitas of which fewer than 25 are likely to be reproductively mature females. The vaquita will be extinct, possibly by 2018, if fishery bycatch is not eliminated immediately. Therefore, CIRVA strongly recommends that the Government of Mexico enact emergency regulations establishing a gillnet exclusion zone covering the full range of the vaquita—not simply the existing Refuge—starting in September 2014.