Down to 60: scientists mull risky captive breeding for panda porpoise

As the vaquita - the world's smallest porpoise - plunges toward extinction, scientists have a tough decision ahead of them: to attempt a super risky captive breeding programme or not?

Today, there are approximately 7.3 billion people on the planet - and only 60 vaquitas. The vaquita has seen its population drop by 92 percent in less than 20 years in Mexico's Gulf of California as the tiny porpoises suffocate to death one-by-one in gillnets. Now, scientists with the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) are cautiously moving forward on a once unthinkable option: captive breeding.

"We have no idea whether it is feasible to find, capture and maintain vaquitas in captivity much less whether they will reproduce," said Barbara Taylor, one of the world's foremost experts on the vaquita with NOAA. "The uncertainties are large."