whales

Since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began documenting an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) for North Atlantic right whales in 2017, 36 of the endangered species are known to have died. Researchers are hoping an entangled female whale swimming in Cape Cod Bay won’t be one of them.  Along with vessel strikes, fishing gear […]

Blue whales are the largest animals on Earth, but that didn’t save them when commercial whaling wiped out as much as 97 percent of their numbers. Today, the aquatic giants are still considered Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, and while their numbers are increasing, they still face threats including […]

Offshore wind opponents along the Eastern Seaboard are weaponizing disinformation about whale strandings in service of their long-held political positions against offshore wind energy. Raising issues around the environmental impacts of clean energy is a common tactic of clean energy opponents, and the anti-wind claims come as social media companies (beyond just Twitter) are cutting […]

One common tactic of renewable energy opponents is to emphasize the new technology’s environmental impact in a way that disguises the harm caused by what it is intended to replace. For example, wind power opponents often point to the turbines’ threat to birds. However, a 2012 study found that fossil fuel plants kill 35 times […]

There are two types of whale: baleen — who have plates of a keratinous substance that sieve their prey from the sea; and toothed — who have teeth and hunt squid, fish and other sea creatures. The sperm whale is the largest species of toothed whale and can be found in all of Earth’s oceans, […]

If you want to eat only sustainable seafood, American lobster (Homarus americanus) is now off the menu. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s influential consumer and retail guide Seafood Watch has added the crimson crustaceans to its “Red List” of seafoods to avoid because of the dangers that lobster pots pose to critically endangered North Atlantic right […]

Experts in France are trying to find a way to quickly save a beluga whale that is starving and stuck in the Seine River. Feeding attempts have been largely unsuccessful but will continue alongside efforts to move the whale out of the river into a saltwater river basin near the sea for monitoring. Beluga whales […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston has ruled to reinstate bans on lobster fishing gear in an area about 1,000 square miles off of the coast of Maine. The ban is a conservation measure meant to protect endangered right whales. In 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as […]