By The Environmental Investigation Agency

A thriving online illegal trade in the swim bladders of endangered totoaba fish is helping to drive the vaquita porpoise to the brink of extinction.

Vaquita are the most endangered marine mammal on the planet and exist only in a small area of Mexico’s Gulf of California. It is estimated as few as 10 individuals remain, with the population devastated in the past decade as a result of being caught in illegal gillnets set to capture totoabas.

Totoaba swim bladders – known as maws – are in high demand in China and, increasingly, in other Asian countries as a symbol of wealth and for their purported, but unproven, medicinal value.

London: EIA, 2024. 20p.