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To recap my research, I have looked into porpoises to see how conservation efforts affect the survival of the species. My hypothesis is that the location of the porpoises’ habitat does not affect the amount of effort that is put into conservation. I have looked over all seven species of porpoises around the world which are the Burmeister's Porpoise, the Dall's Porpoise, the Harbour Porpoise, the Indo-Pacific Finless Porpoise, the Spectacled Porpoise and the Vaquita.
Results
Over the span of my research, I found evidence that connects the location of a porpoise species to the conservation efforts that are made for them. The main species that help to disprove my null hypothesis are the Harbour Porpoise and the Yangtze Finless Porpoise.
Harbour Porpoise
The Harbour Porpoise is an interesting species. In most of the habitats that they live in, they have been declared a species of least concern; but in the Baltic Sea, they are declared a species critically endangered (figure 1). Recently, on the 25th of February, the European Union wrote a law that protects the Harbour Porpoise from overfishing. They outlawed static fishing nets year-round in the hope of aiding the species' population. This gives a point to disprove my null hypothesis because of the extreme effort that is only made in a certain area, where the porpoise population is in a case of critically endangered. The rest of the population of the species outside of the Baltic Sea is in a condition that people do not have to worry about the population.
Figure 1
Harbour Porpoise
This porpoise measures in at an average porpoise size of about 1.85 meters long, there is a critically endangered population that lives in the Baltic Sea. The species also lives in the Northern Pacific Ocean and the Northern Atlantic Ocean.
By Erik Christensen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
Yangtze Finless Porpoise
The Yangzte Finless Porpoise is a critically endangered species that live in the Yangtze River in China. It is the only freshwater porpoise that is known (figure 2). Since the Baiji went extinct in 2008 the governing body around the Yangtze River and private organizations have been working hard to protect the remaining population of the porpoise (figure 3). This helps to disprove my null hypothesis because the majority of the conservation efforts came after the extinction of the Baiji. Due to the event of the Baij,i more people around the Yangzte River made efforts for the population growth.
Figure 3
From 1991 to around 2008 the porpoise had an extreme decline in its population. When the Baiji went extinct in 2008, the slope of the population started to flatline because there were more efforts put into protecting the species, so that there would not be a second species that would go extinct.
Figure 2
Yangtze Finless Porpoise
This porpoise measures around 2 meters long and is also critically endangered, like the population of Harbour Porpoise in the Batlic Sea. There was a dolphin species that also lived in the same river called the Baiji. The baiji went extinct in 2008.
By Huangdan2060 - Own work, CC BY 3.0
Conclusion
The conclusion that my results give evidence is there there is a connection between the habitat and location of a porpoise species and the number of conservation efforts made for the species' population growth. In the future, my research can be used to show more connections between conservation and species habitat to find conservation efforts that work to aid the species population that then can be used in a similar habitat to have more confidence that the efforts will work.
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