Skip to content
All news
  • All news
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Corporates
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
  • Stranding
  • Whale watching
Icelandic hunting vessels in port

Whaling boat kept in port after more hunt cruelty exposed

Icelandic whale hunting fleet One of the whaling boats involved in the latest hunts in...
Commerson's dolphin

New Important Marine Mammal Areas added to global ocean conservation list

Commerson's dolphin Experts from a number of countries have mapped out a new set of...
Image showing two harpoon wounds in fin whale

Whalers kill just days after Iceland’s hunt suspension is lifted

Whalers in Iceland have claimed their first victims since the lifting (just a few days...
Fin whale

Icelandic government lifts suspension on cruel hunts

The Icelandic government is to allow fin whales to be hunted again after lifting a...

CONFIRMED: 3rd right whale death of 2018

A NOAA ship reported the sighting of yet another carcass of an endangered North Atlantic right whale.  This whale, found approximately 100 miles east of Cape Cod, is the 3rd known mortality in 2018, all of whom bore injuries consistent with entanglement in fishing gear. The news comes only one week after WDC, a federally appointed member of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, requested the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) consider additional measures toward reducing right whale deaths from accidental entanglements in gear. 

Sadly, this latest mortality brings the total number of deaths in the past 18 months to 20, a devastating impact to a species in decline due to human causes.  Entanglements in fishing gear and vessels trikes are the leading threats to the survival of the species.  These threats appear to be on the rise as a changing climate has altered the travel patterns of right whales as they search for prey.  According to a technical memo released by NOAA, an encounter with fishing gear is the most frequent cause of documented right whale serious injuries and deaths in recent years. The odds of an entanglement event are now increasing by 6.3% per year.  The report goes on to say that there has been no confirmed case of natural mortality in adult right whales in the past several decades

“We know that shippers and fishers are not intentionally killing right whales but it will not be an accident if they go extinct because we didn’t take action quickly enough” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of WDC’s North American office.  “Modifying fishing gear and slowing ships down can not only save lives, it can save a species.”

WDC and its partners are asking for its US supporters to contact their member of Congress (Representatives and Senators) and ask them co-sponsor the 2018 SAVE Right Whales Act (S. 3038/H.R. 6060). The bill would authorize $5 million/year over a 10 year period to fund critical research and new technologies to reduce human risks to North Atlantic right whale research.  These funds could help develop and provide new fishing gear technologies which will reduce the risk of entanglement while still allowing commercial fisheries to operate and develop measures that will reduce the risk of a vessel striking and killing a right whale.  

Since its incorporation in 2005, WDC’s North American office has implemented a program specifically dedicated to the continued survival of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, a project which the Patagonia Outdoor Clothing and Gear company has helped to support since 2010.

If you would like to help WDC and its work to save this species, please consider making a donation.  

About Regina Asmutis-silvia

Executive director - WDC North America