For about three decades, beluga whales and bottlenose dolphins greeted more than a million annual visitors to Marineland of Canada. In the sprawling 162-hectare (400-acre) theme park, located a stone’s…
On Feb. 13, a juvenile humpback dolphin was caught and killed in one of the many nets strung up off the coast of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province to protect beachgoers…
Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) off Australia's southern coast are having calves less often than they used to. A new study links this slowdown to warming water and shrinking sea…
Penguins are dramatically shifting their breeding season as the Antarctic peninsula warms, a recent study finds. From 2012 to 2022, researchers used remote cameras to examine the timing of breeding…
Indonesian scientists have attached a satellite tag onto an endangered pygmy blue whales for the first time by drone. The tag’s data not only revealed a new feeding site for…
North Atlantic long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) now have 60% lower concentrations of some legacy PFAS than they did a decade ago, offering rare good news about the effectiveness of…
Division was four years old when he died, a young age even by the shortened standards now applied to North Atlantic right whales. His body was found in late…
DILI, Timor-Leste — Whale tourism in Timor-Leste is booming. Tour operators report a healthy number of sightings and full bookings in the peak season of September to December, when hundreds…
Populations of northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus), playful animals that resemble large dolphins, stretch across the Atlantic Ocean, with each group of whales living year-round in a particular deep ocean…
How are whale populations faring? Traditionally, getting an answer to that question involved counting whales by taking their photos and identifying them from their natural markings. However, a caveat persisted.…
All along the western Antarctic Peninsula, whales, penguins and seals in their millions depend on krill (Euphausia superba) throughout the year. In the most rapidly warming region on the continent,…
SAN DIEGO, U.S. — The bluff at La Jolla Cove in San Diego is covered with pelicans and cormorants; below, some two dozen sea lions lounge on a rocky ledge…
San Matías Gulf, on the northern coast of Argentina’s Patagonia region, is one of the most biodiverse areas in the Argentine Sea. The Valdés Peninsula — a UNESCO World Heritage…
Before pivoting her focus to the Arctic, Alysa McCall worked extensively in the grassland ecosystem. There, the interventions required for ecosystem restoration and wildlife protection were much less complicated. You…
A global study tracking nearly 13,000 individual marine animals has uncovered a sharp disconnect between where these animals actually spend their time and where marine protections exist. The findings raise…
The Chilean government has recently approved a new port project in Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic Region, an area that recently attracted a lot of attention due to its enormous…
"We were amazed when we first noticed this behavior," said Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research in the U.S. state of Washington. What started as a…
In a world full of bad news, there’s been good news in whale conservation. Many of the great whales are coming back. In fact, some populations have been recovering faster…
Samoa, an archipelagic country composed of nine islands in the South Pacific Ocean, is on the frontline of climate change. Rising sea levels, ocean warming and acidification all pose significant…
The search for intelligent life is looking in the wrong direction. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, some of them older than our sun and with Earth-like planets…
MIRISSA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan waters are considered a haven for the largest creatures ever to have lived, the blue whale, a rare place for a resident, year-round population…
Lorayne Meltzer has lived along the Gulf of California for 30 years. As an ecologist and director of a binational field station, she’s supported many scientists in their research into…
PLAQUEMINES PARISH, U.S. — Down past New Orleans lies Plaquemines parish, a narrow sliver of land at the tip of Louisiana that reaches southward like a finger pointing into the…
On Jan. 29, the sky above Mexico City’s Zócalo plaza was filled with the floating figures of giant balloon whales. Hundreds of people from the “Whales or Gas?” coalition protested…
What better way to track whales than listening in on them? Passive acoustic monitoring, in which microphones are placed underwater to pick up any sounds, has long helped scientists detect…
When certain algae flourish in the sea, they produce neurotoxins that can sicken both humans and marine animals. Acute exposure to these toxins is known to kill whales and other…
Groundbreaking research in the late 1990s showed that Arctic-dwelling bowhead whales could live more than 150 or even 200 years — longer than any other mammal. New research, inspired by…
On Dec. 6, Iceland’s caretaker government announced it had issued five-year licenses to hunt fin and minke whales in Icelandic waters. It granted the fin whale hunting license to Hvalur…
The spade-toothed whale is among the rarest and least-studied of whales. Until recently, only six records of the species existed, collected over the past 150 years. In early December, scientists…
The frigid depths of the polar oceans exist only in the imagination for most people. Images of stark white ice fields and vast expanses of water might lead us to…
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are finding a new place to roam in the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean. Though Indigenous people in the region have seen the whales, also known as…
Many of us have likely come across that viral video on social media – a young woman touching the back of a large, possibly pregnant, great white shark, swimming alongside…
