--- title: Leonardo DiCaprio Wants Your Help Saving Mexican Porpoises description: There may be only 30 vaquita porpoises left in the entire world canonical: https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-12T16:12:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:36.015Z og:title: Leonardo DiCaprio Wants Your Help Saving the Porpoises og:description: There may be only 30 vaquita porpoises left in the entire world og:url: https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt342e846777d04ad4/6988cbe18e0601896b46a3a8/leo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: "The Great Gatsby" World Premiere - Outside Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Leonardo DiCaprio Wants Your Help Saving the Porpoises twitter:description: There may be only 30 vaquita porpoises left in the entire world twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt342e846777d04ad4/6988cbe18e0601896b46a3a8/leo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Part-Time World Saver Leonardo DiCaprio Wants You to Help Him Out and Save the Porpoises > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 12, 2017 4:12 PM UTC  NEW YORK, NY - MAY 01: Actor Leonardo DiCaprio attends the "The Great Gatsby" world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on May 1, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images) NEW YORK, NY - MAY 01: Actor Leonardo DiCaprio attends the "The Great Gatsby" world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on May 1, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images) Jemal Countess—Getty Images by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 12, 2017 4:12 PM UTC When Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t starring in films like _The Revenant_, and _The Wolf of Wall Street,_ he sidelines in saving the world. The actor and activist took to Twitter and Instagram this week to draw attention to the World Wildlife Fund’s petition asking Mexico’s President to take immediate action to protect the endangered vaquita [porpoise](http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/11/12/dick-van-dyke-porpoises-saved-my-life/?iid=sr-link2). The [porpoises](http://time.com/4362676/baby-dolphin-kayaker-rescue/?iid=sr-link5) could really use his help, too. According to a [recent report, only roughly 30 vaquitas left](http://www.iucn-csg.org/index.php/2017/02/02/2361/) in the world, which means that half of the population has disappeared since the last survey in 2015 . It’s believed that [the vaquita population has dwindled](http://time.com/4338827/vaquita-popoise-extinction/?iid=sr-link1) to the point of near extinction due to poachers who use gillnets to catch another endangered fish called the totoaba, prized for medicine in China. The World Wildlife Fund has a petition that calls on Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to establish a permanent ban on gill nets. Now with DiCaprio directing his millions of Instagram and Twitter followers to the vaquitas’ plight, Peña Nieto has addressed this on Twitter. In a series of messages, the Mexican president explained his government’s ongoing efforts to save the vaquita. “Mexico has focused all its efforts to prevent the [extinction](http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1651819,00.html?iid=sr-link6) of this species,” Peña Nieto wrote, adding in a separate tweet that it is something that his government should have done in the past. Let’s just hope it’s not too late for the vaquitas. > [](https://twitter.com/EPN/status/862860218081787904) > [](https://twitter.com/EPN/status/862861447897927683) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/"},"headline":"Part-Time World Saver Leonardo DiCaprio Wants You to Help Him Out and Save the Porpoises","datePublished":"2017-05-12T16:12:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:36.015Z","description":"There may be only 30 vaquita porpoises left in the entire world","url":"https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt342e846777d04ad4/6988cbe18e0601896b46a3a8/leo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt342e846777d04ad4/6988cbe18e0601896b46a3a8/leo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"The Great Gatsby\" World Premiere - Outside Arrivals","caption":"\"The Great Gatsby\" World Premiere - Outside Arrivals","creditText":"Jemal Countess—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4777107/leonardo-dicaprio-on-porpoise/","name":"Part-Time World Saver Leonardo DiCaprio Wants You to Help Him Out and Save the Porpoises"}}]}] ```