For thousands of years, people of the Lummi Nation in Washington state have treasured their deep connection to the orca pods that populate the waters of the Salish Sea. It’s…
New research published in the journal PLoS ONE this month finds that the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) is effectively aiding in the recovery of beleaguered populations of marine mammals…
The government of Japan confirmed today that it is withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and will resume commercial whaling operations in the North Pacific. The IWC, an inter-governmental…
1. The race is on to map the seafloor Is it true that we have explored the moon and Mars more thoroughly than the bottom of the ocean? Embarrassingly, yes.…
The number of whales ensnared in fishing nets and other debris in U.S. waters didn’t change much between 2016 and 2017, according to a report by the National Oceanic and…
The Trump Administration announced today that it will issue five Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) for airgun blasting off the Atlantic coast. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated:…
Scientists have mapped whale stress levels in relation to human activity going back nearly a century and a half — using earwax collected from baleen whales. From 1870 to 2016,…
On October 14, the crew of a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship called the Henry B. Bigelow reported a whale carcass floating about 100 miles east of…
An international team of scientists has developed a method to assess the detection area of acoustic monitoring devices. These instruments, which can record the calls and other sounds of animals…
Noise from ships changes the way that whales and dolphins communicate with each other, according to two studies published this week. Marine biologists know that an increasingly cacophonous ocean, filled…
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…
This is the second story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats Women’s work in…
This is the main story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Watching the wildlife return: Q&A with a rural Senegalese river monitor Women’s work in…
Dead whales are a nutritional boon for polar bears, and they’ve likely helped bears survive lean periods during warm spells in the past when much of the Arctic was ice-free.…
Entanglement in fishing gear has claimed the life of a second North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) in 2018, according to reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).…
A few decades ago, most countries phased out the manufacture and use of a highly toxic group of industrial chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. But the dangers of these…
For 19th-century adventurers like Sir John Franklin, navigating a path through the ice-choked Northwest Passage — the Holy Grail of Arctic exploration — was a treacherous and often deadly undertaking.…
JAKARTA — Dolphins haven’t had it easy in Bali, a resort island in Indonesia that’s massively popular with tourists. They’re often held captive in chlorinated pools for traveling circuses; a…
KUCHING, Malaysia — Conservationists have called on governments and the private sector to do more to mitigate the impact of global shipping activities on marine ecosystems and communities in the…
TOULOUSE, France — Solving the problem of the growing amount of plastic in the ocean requires rethinking how we use and design plastic products, a group of scientists said at…
On this episode of the podcast we discuss the increasing use of drones by wildlife lovers, researchers, and businesses, how that might be stressing animals out, and how drone hobbyists…
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…
An increasingly ice-free Arctic could test the adaptability of marine mammals, a new study has found, as hundreds of ships in recent years have used the newly open polar seas…
Shark-fishing outfits have for decades been catching dolphins, seals and other sea mammals to use as bait, helping drive some of those species closer to extinction, researchers have found. In…
Humans have had a massive impact on other forms of life, one that far outweighs how little biomass we represent, according to a recent study. “It is definitely striking, our…
On today’s episode, renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle joins us for an in-depth conversation about marine conservation. Listen here: Legendary oceanographer, marine biologist, and environmentalist Sylvia Earle, sometimes known…
In a span of five days in late April, Mexican police arrested two men attempting to take hundreds of dried swim bladders, harvested from a critically endangered species of fish,…
Under the Arctic ice, a mysterious concert plays out each winter. Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) living east of Greenland break into a wide range of complex, intricate songs, showcasing a…
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has published the first list of foreign fisheries, detailing the risks that commercial fishing around the world pose to marine mammals. “The…
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…