AWI Quarterly Articles | Marine Wildlife

Around the globe each year, more than 650,000 marine mammals are killed or seriously injured as bycatch—entangled or hooked in fishing gear meant for other species. Since 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act has decreed...

No more than 360 North Atlantic right whales remain, including fewer than 70 reproductively active females. The past seven years have been devastating, as entanglements in commercial fishing gear and vessel strikes continue to take...

In a new study published in Global Change Biology (Wiens & Zelinka, 2024), researchers at the University of Arizona examined a comprehensive suite of factors to estimate climate-caused extinction in coming decades. The conclusions are...

Science increasingly supports the conclusion that, due to their size and their physiological and social needs, certain cetaceans cannot cope in captivity, where they are kept in small, impoverished environments and often die prematurely. AWI...

North Atlantic right whales face grave danger in both the choppy waters off the coast and within the storm-tossed chambers of Congress. As vessel strikes and entanglements continue to take a heavy toll on this...

Since 2000, Dr. Naomi Rose, AWI’s marine mammal biology senior scientist, has attended meetings of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee as an invited participant. At this year’s meeting—held in Bled, Slovenia, in late April/early...

A critically endangered population of orcas, numbering only 40 individuals, inhabits the outer coastal waters of the Iberian Peninsula. Since spring 2020, these whales have been dramatically interacting with boats—mostly sailing yachts. These interactions started...

A recent study published in Cambridge University’s Animal Welfare journal (Mood et al., 2023) estimates the number of farmed fishes slaughtered for food in global aquaculture from 1990 to 2019. The study authors first noted...

Dr. Michael Tillman, a long-time advocate for whales and conservation, died in July at the age of 80. Dr. Tillman was born in Seattle, but his roots extended northward: Through his maternal family, he was...

The Rice’s whale was initially listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2019 as a subspecies—the Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale—but was reclassified as a unique species in 2021. Its primary threats include...