Marine Mammals News

COLOMBO — When some of the biggest machines ever made meet the largest animals to ever live, it often doesn’t work out well for the latter. In March 2012, a…

The population of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales continues to dwindle, sparking concerns that the species might be creeping closer to extinction. A newly released estimate suggests that only…

Once common in East Africa, there is now only one known viable dugong population found in this entire region. With just a few hundred left in the waters around the…

A spate of North Atlantic right whale deaths that began in 2017 shook the scientists who study the critically endangered species. That year, 17 whales died, and the losses prompted…

A new study has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life will be at high or critical risk by the year 2100 if climate change accelerates along a high-emissions…

International wildlife trade regulator CITES recently decided to allow an aquaculture company in Mexico to export captive-raised totoabas, a large fish categorized as being in danger of extinction under Mexican…

Today we’re looking at two stories that show how bioacoustics research is helping us better understand the lives of marine mammals — and we take a listen to some of…

Generally, the word pollution conjures images of billowing smokestacks, oily water and trash-filled highway medians. But for whales, dolphins and porpoises, a subtler and perhaps more sinister source of pollution…

In 2019, researchers sailed to a sprawling seamount off the coast of South Africa, and lowered hydrophones to the seafloor. They picked up all kinds of noises: waves, the crackling of…

Known only by his identity code, ID#35 was the last individual of a doomed subpopulation of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). He was the sole occupant of a deep pool…

What happens when there’s a dead whale on the beach? In many reported strandings, the next steps look quite similar: where possible, biologists and veterinarians examine the carcass and conduct…

In 2017, a dugong washed ashore on a beach north of Townsville, Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef. The dead animal had scratch marks on its belly and back, and…

KATHMANDU — A bear walks into a hospital unnoticed at around midnight. It licks bloodstains on the floor. At first, the staffers think it’s a big dog, then realize it's…

Today we look at two new studies of African wildlife using bioacoustics and take a listen to some of the recordings informing that research. Listen here: Bioacoustics combines biology and…

Midway through a recent documentary called Last of the Right Whales, we get a drone’s-eye view of half a dozen jet-black right whales cuddling and caressing while lolling in an…

At the start of each year, southern elephant seals living on Kerguelen Island above Antarctica shed the thick mat of their winter fur, while growing in a fresh layer of…

Maritza Sepúlveda grew up in San Felipe, a town far from the ocean in central Chile. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, her curiosity about the ocean began early…

1. The ocean-climate nexus The presence of the ocean was felt more strongly than ever at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12…

With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…

It’s not easy to try to describe how a dolphin experiences sound in the ocean, says Lindy Weilgart, a noise pollution expert at Dalhousie University in Canada. “We have terrestrial…

JAKARTA — Conservationists in Indonesia are pushing for the establishment of a protected area along a stretch of Borneo’s Mahakam River to save the remaining population of the nearly extinct…

Ecuador will expand the marine reserve encircling the Galápagos Islands, President Guillermo Lasso announced on Nov. 1 at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The current Galápagos Marine Reserve…

The last 80 Irrawaddy dolphins that inhabit the Mahakam River in Indonesian Borneo lead precarious lives. Their forays to find fish are frequently thwarted, sometimes fatally so, by a series…

Croatia’s Lošinj archipelago is home to a large resident population of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), which suffered a decline between 1995 and 2003. Driving the drop, among other factors, is…

Americans love their polar bears. The largest land carnivores in the world, these massive, powerful beasts are fierce, fearless and very much threatened. It’s the threatened aspect of their story…

Conservationists have expressed hope that a New Zealand company whose bid to mine the seabed was blocked by the country’s highest court last month has little chance of winning approval.…

BOGOR, Indonesia — The population of the nearly extinct bowmouth guitarfish in Indonesia is being depleted by overfishing, according to a recent study that calls for a reduction in its…

The recent killing of 1,428 white dolphins in the Faroe Islands has brought renewed scrutiny to the island nation’s long-held tradition of driving cetaceans into shore and butchering them for…

In July 2021, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced that 866 West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus) had died in the state of Florida in the first seven months of…

Humans have created so much plastic that it now exists from the slopes of Mount Everest to the extreme depths of the oceans. When we consider the effects of plastic…