In early 2019 cetaceans in the Western Indian Ocean and Arabian Seas were the focus of two important scientific meetings. The first was to identify Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) within the region, and the second, conducted under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission...

The report of the 11th meeting of the international vaquita recovery team (CIRVA), held in La Jolla, California on 19-21 February 2019, is now available. The report recommends a series of immediate, near-term, medium-term, and long-term actions to prevent extinction of the vaquita. It calls...

The IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force invited 23 marine mammal researchers and other experts from 14 Pacific countries to Apia, Samoa, for the second in a series of regional Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) workshops, 27-31 March 2017. This followed the first IMMA...

The Second Indian Ocean Cetacean Symposium will be held by the Marine Research Centre (www.mrc.gov.mv) in the Maldives in 2019.  This is to follow on from the first Indian Ocean Cetacean Symposium that was held almost a decade ago, in July 2009, (see report here),...

The Third Southeast Asian Marine Mammal Symposium (SEAMAM III) will be taking place in Langkawi Island, Malaysia, from 4 - 10 March 2013. The event will be co-hosted by the MareCet Research Organization along with the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University Malaya. SEAMAM...

A new publication on cetaceans and manatees in the Western African region has just been published by CMS. The publication is a compilation of articles presented at the scientific symposium ‘Western African Talks on Cetaceans and their Habitats (WATCH)’ held in Adeje, Tenerife in 2007....