IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group

Critically Endangered

IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group / Critically Endangered (Page 5)
07 Feb 2018

Cooperative Net Removal Efforts Increase to Save Vaquitas

The net removal effort, started by Sea Shepherd’s Operation Milagro in collaboration with the Mexican Navy in 2015, is building to become the biggest yet in the totoaba season currently under way. The initial Sea Shepherd/Navy effort focused on observing pangas illegally setting nets at...

30 Jan 2018

Vaquita rescue efforts suspended

The 10th meeting of CIRVA (Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita) was held at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, on 11-12 December 2017 and the final report of CIRVA-10 (which includes the report of a short meeting of CIRVA...

15 Dec 2017

2017 Cetacean Red List Update

Assessments or reassessments of 19 cetacean species, subspecies and populations were published on the IUCN Red List in 2017.  These included all four species of humpback dolphin, the Irrawaddy dolphin, two species of finless porpoise, the South Asian River dolphin, the beluga, the narwhal, and...

02 Oct 2017

Update on Mekong River dams and river dolphins

As mentioned in an article posted on this website on 8 February 2017, the construction of large dams in the mainstem of the Mekong River in Laos and Cambodia represents an existential threat to the small, Critically Endangered freshwater population of Orcaella brevirostris. Following the...

19 Jun 2017

Initiative to save Taiwanese white dolphins from extinction

Taiwanese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis taiwanensis) live in shallow nearshore waters along the west coast of Taiwan (= eastern Taiwan Strait). Researchers from Taiwan and elsewhere have been studying this small and declining population (currently < 75 individuals) since its discovery in 2002 (Wang et...

11 May 2017

Vaquita on the verge of extinction

CIRVA (Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita) met again in April 2017, just 5 months after the committee's last meeting. The meeting report, which was officially released today at the IWC Scientific Committee meeting in Slovenia, points out that the vaquita is on...

08 Feb 2017

Progress protecting Mekong River dolphins undermined by proposed dams

[caption id="attachment_2377" align="alignright" width="229"] Somany Phay, Frances Gulland, and H.E. Srun Limsong, Deputy Director General of the Fisheries Administration, Royal Government of Cambodia. Photo Credit: Peter Thomas[/caption] In January 2017 an international workshop on the Critically Endangered freshwater population of dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Mekong...

02 Feb 2017

Jan 2017 update on the decline of the Vaquita

As noted in the 16 December 2016 posting on this site, CIRVA (Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita) met in November to update its findings and recommendations concerning vaquita science and conservation. The meeting report, which was officially released today, concludes that the...