Federal Minister for Home Affairs Bob Debus has described images of Japanese whaling, captured by Australian customs officials, as horrific.

Australian customs ship the Oceanic Viking arrived in the Western Australian port of Fremantle after seven weeks at sea, collecting video and photographic evidence of Japanese whaling activities.


Read full article: 'Japan whaling footage horrifying: Debus'

By Peter Popham in Rome

The Italian government has given approval for a liquefied natural gas terminal to be installed on a huge ship anchored 12 miles off the coast of Livorno, in Tuscany, in the middle of a whale and dolphin sanctuary.

The Cetaceans Sanctuary of the Mediterranean covers an area of about 100,000 square kilometres from the coast of Tuscany in Italy to Toulon in the south of France, and includes the whole of Corsica and the northern coast of Sardinia.


Read full article: 'Whale sanctuary is threatened by gas terminal plan'

Plan to Slow Ship Speeds in East Coast Waters Stalls as Agencies Fight Over One of World's Most Endangered Mammals!

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

Sixteen months ago, a federal agency proposed slowing ships in certain East Coast waters to 10 knots or less during parts of the year to save the North Atlantic right whale, one of the world's most endangered marine mammals, from extinction.


Read full article: 'The Wrong Way to Save Right Whales?'

Whales appear to be returning to Island waters after area population was wiped out in 1967

Katherine Dedyna, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, October 18, 2007

It began as a low, inquisitive bellow, then morphed into quasi-barks, growls and echoing calls. For the first time in 25 years, the "true song" of the humpback whale has serenaded spellbound whale researchers in West Coast waters.


Read full article: 'Humpback whales return to Island'

Satellites tracking humpback whales Humpback whales carrying satellite tags are helping researchers discover their migration routes.

An international group of scientists are studying whales in the South Pacific.

They were able to put satellite tags on a group of whales off New Caledonia and the Cook Islands.


Read full article: 'Scientists studying whales in the South Pacific'

Jade Witten
Cape Town

The SA Whale Disentanglement Network says more and more giants of the ocean are becoming victims of rock lobster trappings and that solving this problem is a priority.

On Tuesday, marine rescue officers battled to free a 9,75m Southern Right whale entangled in nets.

Mike Meyer of Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) said initiating a workable strategy is in the pipeline between MCM and the Rock Lobster Association.


Read full article: 'South Africa: Keeping Coast Whale-Friendly 'Is a Priority''

The Australian government has launched an anti-whaling message aimed at Japanese children on video-sharing internet site YouTube.

In the video, which carries Japanese subtitles, Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull urges all countries to stop catching and killing whales.



Read full article: 'Whaling battle moves to YouTube'

GREENPEACE MEDIA RELEASE
Pacific Whales Tracked By Greenpeace
Suva, Fiji, 10 October 2007. Greenpeace today announced the launch of the "Great Whale Trail", a website which uses satellite tracking to show the migration of threatened humpback whales from their breeding grounds in the South Pacific to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary(1).

The tracking project will produce vital scientific data on the whales' movements, habitat use and population structure. The website is also a window through which the public can follow their progress and learn more about the range of threats to marine life.


Read full article: 'New Website: Pacific Whales Tracked By Greenpeace'

Investigators from the Society for Cetacean Study have scored an historic first in waters off south Tenerife by filming a whale eating a giant squid...


Read full article: 'World whale first - South Tenerife whales and the cephalopod connection'

Norwegian police said Thursday they were investigating a claim from a group of environmental activists that it deliberately sank a whaling ship last month.

Activists calling themselves Agenda 21 claimed responsibility for the sinking "to celebrate the end of commercial whaling in Iceland," according to a message posted on the US-hosted website www.directaction.info.


Read full article: 'Norway police probe sabotage claim in whale ship sinking'

A whale conservation success story, the recovery of the eastern Pacific gray whale, may not be quite what it seems.

Since the end of commercial whaling, numbers rose to about 20,000, thought to be the level they had been at before hunting began.

But a new study using genetic methods, reported in the journal PNAS, suggests pre-hunting numbers were much higher.


Read full article: 'Whale 'success story' questioned'

NEAH BAY, Clallam County — It was about 6:30 on a beautiful summer morning, with gray whales all around, when Wayne Johnson decided he had waited long enough: It was time to hunt whales again.

Within minutes Saturday, Johnson and four other Makah tribal members were on the downtown dock at Neah Bay, boarding two motorized boats. By the end of the day, the men were in handcuffs and a whale was dead.

Sunday, even as tribal council members strongly denounced the hunt, Johnson said he had no regrets. "If anything, I wish I'd done it years earlier," he said.


Read full article: 'Hunter not ashamed of killing whale without a permit'

SAINT LAWRENCE RIVER, Canada (AFP) — The beluga whales make a shrill sound as they stick their noses out of the water, watched by conservationist Michel Moisan. They are a rare sight this far south -- and the chemicals washing into their river are keeping them that way.

Most beluga are found in the Arctic, but a rare pocket survives -- just -- here where the river Saguenay river meets the Saint Lawrence some 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Montreal. They are the only ones among the 13 whale species in the river to live here all year round.

Spying a group of beluga through binoculars, Moisan, of the local Marine Mammal Research and Education Group, draws close in his boat, photographs them, notes their location, then fires a dart to grab a sample of fat from the creatures to glean more information on their health.


Read full article: 'Pollution stunts Canada's beluga whales'

WASHINGTON (AFP) — An appeals court overturned Friday a ban on the US navy's use of sonar in upcoming training exercises off California that was aimed at protecting whales disturbed by the subsea emissions.

Reversing an August 6 decision in the longstanding battle between environmental groups and the US military over whale safety, the appeals court said the court that handled the case earlier had overstepped.


Read full article: 'US judge overturns whale-protecting ban on sonar'

Washington, D.C. (Aug 29, 2007 17:40 EST) For the first time, researchers have recorded “megapclicks” — a series of clicks and buzzes from humpback whales apparently associated with nighttime feeding behaviors — in and around NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. As detailed in the most recent issue of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, this study offers the first documentation that baleen whales produce this type of sound, normally associated with toothed whales and echolocation.

“We’ve known that humpback whales exhibit a variety of foraging behaviors and vocalizations, but these animals as well as other baleen whales were not known to produce broadband clicks in association with feeding,” said David Wiley, sanctuary research coordinator and leader of the research team. “However, recent work with special acoustic tags has made us reexamine our previous assumptions, with this expansion of the acoustic repertoire of humpback whales.”


Read full article: ''Megapclicks' Recorded For The First Time From Feeding Humpback Whales'