The Brink of Extinction: The Most Endangered Animals in the World

Vaquita

You’ve probably never seen one of these cartoonish looking porpoises in person before and thanks to illegal fishing operations in the Gulf of California, you may never get the chance to. The vaquita is the world’s smallest cetacean and can only be found in the narrow body of water between the Baja California Peninsula and the mainland of Mexico.

Sadly, for the vaquita, it lives in close proximity to totoabas, a rare endangered fish that is known to fetch a high price on the Chinese black market. In casting nets to catch the totoabas, illegal fisherman often catch vaquitas, which has reduced the total population so drastically that experts say there are just 30 left, making it the most endangered marine animal in the world.

Want to know what extinction looks like?
Here is the Vaquita. There are 12 left in the world. TWELVE.

Soon our planet will be devoid of yet another magnificent creature because of human greed. pic.twitter.com/2AYH6jiboI

— Bella Lack ? (@BellaLack) July 4, 2018