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It’s save the vaquita week. What you should know about the world’s most adorable and endangered porpoise.

There are less than two dozen left on Earth.

via Brandt Witt / Twitter

The vaquita is an innocent bystander that may go extinct as Mexican cartels battle for the "cocaine of the sea."

Less than two dozen of the smallest porpoise on Earth exist due to gill net fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico trying to catch the endangered totoaba fish. Totoaba are falsely believed to have medicinal purposes and China and can be sold for up to $100,000.

Cartels in Mexico purchase totoaba from poachers and then sell them to Chinese traders.

In 2016, the Mexican government banned gill nets from most fisheries in the Gulf of California, but they haven't done enough to hold the poachers accountable.

The gill nets used by the totoaba poachers are anchored to the sea floor floor so when the vaquita are snared they are unable to get to the surface to breathe. "These nets are anchored to the seafloor and so they can't pull those nets up to the surface to take a breath," Cynthia Smith, executive director of the National Marine Mammal Foundation told "Nightline." "So, a marine mammal or a sea turtle — they're going to drown really quickly."

via NOAA / Wikimedia Commons

Today, less than two dozen vaquita live in the gulf. The species is experiencing an 8% to 19% decline per year.

The vaquita or "sea cow" in Spanish, is the smallest species of porpoise on earth at about five feet in length and they live for around 20 years. It has a distinct body shape and a dark eye rings and lip patches on its face that resemble goth makeup.

They tend to live in groups of three and live on small fish and squid.

According to ABC News, the vaquita may only last for another six to eight months.

While the odds are stacked against the vaquita, a new documentary "Sea of Shadows" chronicles the two-front war being fought for its survival. The film chronicles the work of conservationist Andrea Crosta as he fights the cartels and traffickers on land and Smith's battle to rehabilitate them at sea.

"From the outside it looks like an environmental story, right? But if you dive in, you understand the role of transnational crime, the narco trafficking, working with Chinese traffickers," Crosta said. "They form what we call Totoaba cartels because they work in the same way, with the incredible power to corrupt, all over the place."

For more information on how you can help fight to save the vaquita from extinction, please visit vivavaquita.com.

From Your Site Articles

Mexico's president reacts to pressure from Leonardo DiCaprio to save a species.

On May 10, 2017, actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio took to Twitter to save a marine species.

"The vaquita is the most endangered marine mammal in the world," he wrote of the species, which can only be found off Mexico's shores in the Gulf of California. "Join me [and the World Wildlife Fund] and take action."

It may seem like an average tweet, coming from one of the biggest environmental advocates in the world. But the tweet has had global ramifications.

Photo by National Geographic Channel, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

As DiCaprio noted in a Facebook post that same day, unsustainable fishing has caused a steep decline in the total number of vaquitas.

There may only be 30 left in the gulf right now — a 90% drop since 2011 — which also explains why there seem to be so few photos of the rare porpoise in the wild.

A rare photo of a vaquita. Photo by World Wildlife Fund.

One major reason for the falling numbers is China's hunger for the totoaba fish, which also only lives in the Gulf of California. Mexican fishermen use massive gill nets to catch the totoaba and ship the marine animals to China — an illegal practice in itself. But all too often, vaquitas get caught in these nets and are needlessly killed.

This doesn't just affect the vaquita either. Illegal fishing is harming many other marine species in the region, too — species that local communities rely on for food and business.

DiCaprio linked to a petition by the World Wildlife Fund calling on Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to act now to save the species in his Facebook post and tweet.

Among other demands, the letter urges the president to implement and enforce a permanent gill net fishing ban.

Photo by Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images.

To Nieto's credit, his government has taken some steps to save the vaquita.

In 2015, Mexico implemented a two-year gill net fishing ban. But it wasn't properly enforced, advocates argued, which helps to explain why vaquita numbers continued to dwindle. What's more, what little effect the ban did have on dissuading fisherman is now gone entirely because the ban expired in April 2017.

DiCaprio's posts did actually catch the attention of the Mexican president, who responded on Twitter.

— (@)

In a series of tweets, Nieto explained how his government has upped efforts to save the vaquita in recent years, such as expanding its protection zone in the gulf and committing 300 marines and 15 boats to monitor the area.

Still, DiCaprio's call to act seemed to spark new urgency from the Mexican president, who made a very public commitment to ensure the vaquita won't be lost forever.

— (@)

Not everyone has over 17 million Twitter followers like DiCaprio, but we all have a voice.

Use it to tweet your support for the Word Wildlife Fund's petition and put more pressure on Nieto and Mexico to save the vaquita.