There are barely twenty of them left in the world. The vaquita porpoise is perhaps the least known porpoise, but certainly one of the most interesting.  For many years, a small group of them have lived in the waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, doing no harm to anyone.  Unfortunately, these waters are also used by various fishermen whose modus operandi is to drop massively lengthy nets into the ocean to catch fish.  The problem is obvious:  the nets catch any animal that happens to run into them, not just the fish on which the fishermen are focusing.  The little vaquitas have been decimated by this practice, leading to their near extermination.

     It's easy to say that, well, this is a minor animal species, and if it disappears, the ecosystem will adapt.  Although from a broad biological standpoit this may well be true, it is, by any other standard, patently false.  If this world has purpose, if this world exists by virtue of divine intention, everything in it is important and, significantly, reflective of truth.
     And it is this truth that is, not to be redundant, the truth on which we ought to base our lives.
     Go, vaquitas!