For half a century, industrial tuna fishing vessels have borne scrutiny for catching animals they haven’t meant to: “bycatch,” in fisheries lingo. Purse seiner vessels, which provide most of the…
The indiscriminate use of gillnets by fishers in Bangladesh has become a major threat to the two freshwater dolphin species found there: the Ganga River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the…
From above, the Sea of Cortez is a picture of serenity: turquoise waters lapping against rose-tinted bluffs and soft sand beaches. But down below, beneath the water’s surface, a war…
A healthy coral reef system is like a well-managed city. Each resident fish has a job in maintaining the reef: some nibble away at seaweed threatening to smother the coral,…
Belize, a tiny Central American nation nestled beside the Caribbean Sea, is making giant strides in its ocean conservation efforts. In the short space of a month, the government made…
There may be a glimmer of hope for the extremely rare vaquita porpoise, the world’s smallest cetacean, a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. The vaquita is also the…
Scientists and conservation activists conducting a survey for the critically endangered vaquita in October witnessed more than 70 fishing boats within the porpoise’s protected Gulf of California refuge, according to…
Earlier this year, Mongabay reported that there might be as few as 12 vaquita left in the world, down from 30 in 2017. The vaquita population has been driven to…
A new investigation sheds light on an illegal trade that endangers the world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean species, the vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus). The report released July 7 by…
North Atlantic right whales face an increasingly uncertain future. Despite two decades of intensive monitoring and protection, their numbers have hit a seven-year skid, with an estimated 451 right whales…
The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita reported in 2017 that there were just 30 vaquita left in the Upper Gulf of California, the species’ only known habitat. The…
An Australian mining company aims to begin searching for minerals, as well as oil and gas, next to part of the Mekong River in Cambodia where the endangered Irrawaddy river…
VaquitaCPR, the emergency conservation team pulled together by the Mexican government in a desperate attempt to save the vaquita from extinction, announced last Friday that its capture program had come…
Last month, the government of Mexico launched a last-ditch effort to save the Critically Endangered vaquita, a small porpoise known to reside only in the Gulf of California. A team…
When Samuel “El Sammy” Gallardo Castro was shot and killed on a Mexican beach in 2014, it could have been just another gangland killing of a drug dealer from the…
A team of marine mammal experts is searching for the last vaquitas (Phocoena sinus) in the Gulf of California. They’ve gathered in northern Mexico, at the invitation of the government…
More than 50 percent of the sharks and rays native to the Mediterranean Sea are at a high risk of extinction, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced Monday.…
From September, Mexico will permanently ban the use of gillnets throughout the range of vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus) in the upper Gulf of California. With just 60 individuals remaining in…
Fishing industry propelling tiny cetacean to extinction Since the baiji was declared extinct in the early aughts, the vaquita has taken its unenviable position as the world’s most threatened cetacean.…
A recent study from the Biological Conservation journal brings shocking news: every year across the globe, an estimated 400,000 seabirds are killed by gillnets. Gillnets, a common term for any…
Hector's dolphin, the parent species of the Maui's dolphin. Photo by: James Shook. The New Zealand government's recent efforts to protect the world’s smallest dolphin have come under scrutiny from…