Integrated Conservation Planning for Cetaceans (ICPC) is a team of biologists, veterinarians, and population experts that was formed in response to the desperate situation for a number of critically endangered dolphin and porpoise species. Many of these species and populations have shallow-water distributions that entirely overlap areas used intensively by people. Most are declining due to “bycatch mortality” in fishing nets. For some, we already know extinction is imminent without concerted action to save them.
The report of the Ex Situ Options for Cetacean Conservation workshop recommended:
•that marine mammal conservationists around the world work together and act with urgency to consider critically needed conservation measures both in wild environments within the species’ geographic range (in situ) and in protected or modified environments within or outside that range (ex situ).