Tag: whales

Canada lifted the mandatory speed restriction for vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to make sure that ships can operate safely during winter. Transport Canada is not aware of any North Atlantic right whale deaths from vessel strikes this year and will ask vessels to voluntarily slow down if  a whale is spotted in or near the shipping lanes.

In a letter delivered Monday to the Far East office of the Russian Federal Service for Overseeing Natural Resources, 25 whale and dolphin biologists from across the world noted that capturing is highly stressful to free-ranging orcas, leading to injuries, deaths, fractured social networks within pods and potential long-term population declines.

Scientists have used high-resolution satellite images to detect, measure and describe four different species of whales. This study is considered a big step towards developing a method to study whales in remote and inaccessible places, in order to help scientists monitor them an understand their behaviour.

The Fin Whale is now listed as Vulnerable, previously listed as Endangered, in the IUCN Red List, according to recent update, as the global population of the species has roughly doubled since the 1970s. The nearly complete protection of Fin Whales throughout their range has allowed the global population to reach around 100,000 mature individuals.

Japan has launched a new whaling expedition in Antarctica, with the Japanese Government calling it scientific research. The fleet is now on its way to conduct the expedition in the Antarctic Ocean through March. The ships plan to catch 333 minke whales in the country's fourth such whaling expedition since their resumption in 2015, according to the government.

As part of its measures to protect endangered whale populations, Transport Canada will be working with multiple partners on the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation (ECHO) program which is looking at ways to reduce underwater noise in key areas where there are Southern Resident Killer Whales.

By using sound, many marine organisms can communicate underwater and understand information about their environment. However, underwater noise deriving from human activity, produces sounds that interfere with the ability of marine animals to hear the natural sounds in the ocean, concluding on a major and often deadly menace to ocean wildlife.

Australia's government of Queensland is set to implement legislation to criminalise close proximity to shark control equipment, to prevent any photography of lethal drumlines and shark nets. The news comes after a photo release of a baby humpback whale caught in a shark net on the Gold Coast on 5 October.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has concluded that Japan's whaling programme in the North Pacific is illegal. Namely, Japan’s import and sale of sei whale products from its whaling programme in the North Pacific has been censured as illegal by CITES.

During the 67th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission, in  Florianopolis, Brazil, three resolutions were agreed on to protect the whales. The first resolution recognizes the important role of whales to the ecosystem, while the other two are tackling the dangers among cetaceans of both noise pollution and getting entangled in ghost gear.