The vaquita is thought to be the rarest marine mammal, despite only being discovered in 1958. Experts predict that it'll be gone by some time between now and 2018. Way to go, mankind. Their main nemesis is fishing, but the worst part is that it's not even the vaquita that we're after, they're simply collateral damage in China's demand for something known as "maw" which is made from the swim bladder of the totoaba. These swim bladders are traded by a tiny population of the super-rich Chinese who mostly use them as gifts and status symbols. The little porpoises get caught up in the gillnets designed to catch the totoaba where they suffocate and drown. At last count there were only 97 vaquita left in the wild.
