IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group

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IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group / Articles posted by Admin
26 Nov 2024

Scientists galvanise to conserve Endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins

[caption id="attachment_377088" align="alignright" width="300"] Like these in Dubai, UAE, humpback dolphins live very close to shore, often close to cities (Photographer: Ada Natoli).[/caption] Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea) are assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, meaning they are among the species of greatest...

20 Jun 2024

Update: Threats to Taiwanese white dolphins from offshore windfarms

By Qingyi Zeng1 and Chiawen Kuo2 with input from John Y. Wang, Randall Reeves, Gianna Minton and Gill Braulik 1 Ph.D. student at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2 Researcher at Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, Director of Matsu Fish Conservation Union   With the aim of reaching net-zero...

03 Nov 2023

Actions taken by Government of Mexico are insufficient to save the vaquita

  On 6-10 November the CITES Standing Committee will consider Mexico’s August 2023 Progress and Results Report on its Compliance Action Plan to Prevent Fishing for and Illegal Trade in Totoaba, their Parts and/or Derivatives, to Protect the Vaquita (No. 2023/112 Mexico Compliance Action Plan, CAP)....

07 Jun 2023

Vaquitas continue to surprise the world with their tenacity

By Barbara Taylor and Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho   Given the 45% annual decline estimated in 2018, most people expected Mexico’s vaquita porpoise to already be extinct. Scientists have just seen (May 2023) about the same number of vaquitas they saw in 2019 and 2021 in a small area...

06 Apr 2023

Vaquitas get action from CITES as totoaba poaching resumes

By Barbara Taylor, Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho and Kristin Nowell   On 27 March 2023 the Secretariat of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) notified signatory countries to stop all commercial trade in CITES-listed (in Appendix I or II) species from Mexico. This decision stems...

05 Jan 2023

Yet Another Threat to Taiwanese White Dolphins Is Imminent

By Randall Reeves (CSG Chair) and Louisa Ponnampalam and Brian Smith (CSG Asia Coordinators)   On 13 February 2022, an article appeared on this website concerning the existential threat of net entanglement to Taiwan’s endemic humpback dolphin subspecies (Sousa chinensis taiwanensis; known locally as Taiwanese white dolphin)....

23 Dec 2022

Update on Cetacean Red List Assessments Published in 2022

IUCN published two Red List updates in 2022 – 2022-1 in July and 2022-2 in December. The new cetacean assessments reflected several recent taxonomic changes (see Committee on Taxonomy). Ramari’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu), a newly recognised species, was assessed as DD (Brownell and Pitman...