Baja California, Mexico - The vaquita porpoise, one of the world's most endangered animals, could become extinct unless fishing methods are urgently changed, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has warned.

The scientific committee of the IWC issued its first-ever extinction alert on Monday, warning that numbers of the vaquita, which only lives in the upper Gulf of California in Mexico, may now have dropped to less than 10.

"Despite nearly 30 years of repeated warnings, the vaquita hovers
on the edge of extinction due to gillnet entanglement," the committee said in a statement.

"Despite the very low number of surviving animals, 100% enforcement of a ban on gillnets in their core habitat would still give this small but resilient porpoise a chance of recovery."

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Gillnets – nets that hang vertically and catch fish by their gills – kill vaquitas as a bycatch.

"The extinction of the vaquita is inevitable unless 100% of gillnets are substituted immediately with alternative fishing gears that protect the vaquita and the livelihoods of fishers. If this doesn’t happen now, it will be too late," the committee said.

The dolphin-like vaquita ("small cow" in Spanish) is the world's smallest cetacean, with females measuring a maximum of 4.9 feet and males a maximum of 4.6 feet. The vaquitas, which are gray or white, have a tall dorsal fin and long flippers.