Sailors are reporting back on sights they have seen. They were pretty upset about the amount of marine debris they saw in the Mediterranean, such a beautiful sea containing many dolphins but littered with plastic and other debris
Iceland has dodged the bullet of US trade sanctions over its belligerent hunting of endangered fin whales. However it’s not unreasonable to expect diplomatic attention will be focused on its whaling activities in the coming months. Iceland is the only country to actually expand commercial whaling in recent years
The Nat Geo Wild film about our investigation into the trade in Icelandic fin whale in Japan aired in the US on Tuesday. The investigations we did in Iceland and Japan now feel like a distant memory; so much has happened since, although I believe as these things go the film was actually put together in record time
Our Cetaceans Campaigner, Clare Perry, reports on a visit to Japan to document the Dall's porpoise hunt and survey local supermarkets for porpoise meat. While it seems catches have reduced in recent years, more information is required and we will continue to try to establish a dialogue with Japanese authorities.
Since the June annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) rejected the proposal to allow Japan, Norway and Iceland IWC endorsed commercial whaling catch limits, we have been catching up on all the other work that the cetacean campaign does outside the IWC meeting
It is a huge relief that Japan, Norway and Iceland were not rewarded with IWC sanctioned catch limits