whale

With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales have been tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés. The satellite tagging, skin biopsies and photo identification has already provided a huge amount of information about the migration patterns of threatened humpback populations. The "scientific whaling" carried out by the Japanese government does not address the most important needs identified by the International Whaling Commission, and can not be seen as justifiable. This year their quote includes 50 humpback whales.

Greenpeace have launched the Great Whale Trail, following the migration of humpback whales from the warm tropical waters of the South Pacific, where they breed, to the icy Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where they feed. And they're doing it via satellite tracking and Google Maps. Nifty.

In a step greeted with relief by environmental campaigners, Iceland have announced that they will issue no new quotas for commercial whaling. Fisheries minister Einar K Guofinnsson said that “I will not issue a new quota until the market conditions for whale meat improve and permission to export whale products to Japan is secured. There is no reason to continue commercial whaling if there is no demand for the product.”

'A federal judge on Monday ordered the Navy to stop using medium-range sonar in training exercises off Southern California, saying that the Navy’s own assessments predicted that dozens of marine mammals, particularly deep-diving whales, could be harmed by the intense sound waves.'