A sei whale, considered endangered by the IUCN; sei are one of three species that will be hunted commercially in Japan starting today. Gerard Soury / Getty Images
Commercial whaling ships set sail from Japan Monday for the first time in more than 30 years, The Guardian reported.
Skull morphology of hybrid "narluga" whale. Nature / Mikkel Høegh Post
In the 1980s, a Greenlandic subsistence hunter shot and killed a whale with bizarre features unlike any he had ever seen before. He knew something was unique about it, so he left its abnormally large skull on top of his toolshed where it rested until a visiting professor happened upon it a few years later.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA Research Permit # 594-1759
Many fish, marine mammals and seabirds that inhabit the world's oceans are critically endangered, but few are as close to the brink as the North Atlantic right whale (
Eubalaena glacialis). Only about 411 of these whales exist today, and at their current rate of decline, they could become extinct within our lifetimes.
From 1980 through about 2010, conservation efforts focused mainly on protecting whales from being struck by ships. Federal regulations helped
reduce vessel collisions and supported a slight rebound in right whale numbers.
A dead gray whale was found beached at San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Tuesday. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
A gray whale washed up dead on a San Francisco beach Monday morning, CNN reported, making the mammal the ninth to be found dead in the Bay Area this year.
EgNo 4180 and her 2019 calf photographed by the CCS aerial survey team in Cape Cod Bay on April 11. CCS image, NOAA permit 19315-1
One of the rarest species of whale in the world is experiencing a mini-baby boom off the coast of New England, lending hope to the survival of the once-imperiled population.
A sperm whale and calf in the Atlantic Ocean. Perrine Doug / Getty Images
A pregnant sperm whale washed up dead on a beach in Sardinia last week with 22 kilograms (approximately 48.5 pounds) of plastic in its stomach. This is the second whale in two weeks to be found dead with plastic in its belly: a male Cuvier's beaked whale was found in the Philippines after ingesting 88 pounds of plastic bags.
D'Bone Collector Museum head Darrell Blatchley shows plastic found inside the stomach of a Cuvier's beaked whale in the Philippines this weekend. - / AFP / Getty Images
Yet another whale has died after ingesting plastic bags. A young male Cuvier's beaked whale was found washed up in Mabini, Compostela Valley in the Philippines Friday, CNN reported. When scientists from the D' Bone Collector Museum in Davao investigated the dead whale, they found it had died of "dehydration and starvation" after swallowing plastic bags―40 kilograms (approximately 88 pounds) worth of them!
A mother North Atlantic right whale with her calf; conservationists are concerned the endangered species could be further harmed by seismic testing off the Atlantic. NOAA
A congressman found a creative way to make himself heard about the impact of seismic air gun testing on North Atlantic right whales during a committee meeting Thursday.
Assistant Administrator for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Chris Oliver was testifying before a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing that the practice would not impact the animals when South Carolina Democratic Representative Joe Cunningham asked permission to blow an air horn, The Washington Post reported.
