AWI Quarterly Articles | Marine Wildlife

The start of summer 2024 signaled a fitful continuation of the commercial whaling still conducted by three nations: Iceland, Norway, and Japan. Two years ago, Iceland killed 148 fin whales, despite having no domestic market...

A US government workshop was held in late August to discuss options for intervention on behalf of the bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, once a project designed to restore coastal wetlands in the Gulf...

In May, two research vessels embarked on a survey in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, searching for evidence of the world’s rarest marine mammal, the tiny vaquita porpoise. Scientists conducted visual searches and deployed 34...

The 69 th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC69) will take place in Lima, Peru, this September. The gathering will include representatives from most of the 88 IWC member governments, as well as around...

On May 20, the Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced 46 new candidate Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) for the North West Atlantic Ocean and...

Richard Ellis—artist, author, conservationist, and great friend of AWI—died in May at the age of 86. Ellis grew up in Belle Harbor, on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, New York, and spent much of his...

In June, AWI staff members attended Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW), hosted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation in Washington, DC. CHOW—which brings together scientists, policymakers, scholars, businesses, and conservation leaders—is the nation’s premier ocean...

Dr. François Sarano’s In the Name of Sharks uses powerful language, suspense, and tension to evoke a visceral response from readers and deepen their empathy for sharks. The author laments the media’s role in misrepresenting...

Older than the dinosaurs, so incredibly alien, and masters of disguise, octopuses take center stage in National Geographic’s docuseries Secrets of the Octopus. Produced by award-winning filmmaker James Cameron and narrated by actor Paul Rudd...

In March, the National Marine Fisheries Service publicly announced that the unusual mortality event (UME) it declared in 2019 involving eastern North Pacific gray whales is over. In consultation with the federal Working Group on...