Vaquita porpoise are on the edge of extinction, with just 10 left in their sole habitat within Mexico's Gulf of California. However, a new study published Thursday in the journal Science offers some hope: the world's rarest marine mammals aren't doomed by a lack of genetic diversity, and can recover of illegal "gillnet" fishing cages immediately. "We're trying to push back on this idea that there's no hope, that nothing we do could save them at this point. It's just not an accurate assumption," lead author Jacqueline Robinson of the University of California San Francisco told AFP.

Inbreeding won't doom the last of the vaquitas, but fishing might - study. (2022, May 9). Manila Bulletin, p. 7.