Skip to content
All articles
  • All articles
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Fundraising
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent bycatch
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Stop whaling
MicrosoftTeams-image (9)

Double Your Impact for Marine Animal Rescue & Response

On a chilly day this past December, the WDC North America team celebrated the first...
20230126_091707

WDC’s Education Wishlist = Cleared!

To the WDC Community, I want to thank you so much for your support of...
Hysazu Photography

Looking forward for Southern Resident orcas in 2023

Hysazu Photography 2022 was a big year for Southern Resident orcas - 2022 brought the...
Credit: Seacoast Science Center

The Unlikely Adventure of Shoebert, a Young Grey Seal Who Visited an Industrial Park Pond

Credit: Seacoast Science Center In mid-September, our stranding partners in northern Massachusetts were inundated with...
Leaping harbour porpoise

The power of harbour porpoise poo

We know we need to save the whale to save the world. Now we are...
Right whale - Regina WDC

Whale and Dolphin Conservation: Change Through Policy.

WDC focuses on education, research, conservation projects, and policy work to create a sustainable future...
Clear the list graphic

Clear WDC’s Amazon Wishlist for Giving Tuesday

UPDATE: We are thrilled to report that everything was donated off of our Amazon Wishlist...
Fin whales are targeted by Icelandic whalers

Speaking truth to power – my week giving whales a voice

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting is where governments come together to make decisions about whaling...

Some seal haul out sites to be protected around Scotland

Just days after a Westminster environmental committee criticised the UK Government for delays in designating and properly managing MPAs in English waters, Marine Scotland has announced measures to better protect seals at 194 haul out sites around the Scottish coastline.

WDC welcomes measures to better protect grey and harbour seals around Scotland, and especially because harbour seals are declining at an alarming rate in some parts of Scotland. Urgent action is now necessary to reverse these population declines.

Under the draft Order that has been presented to the Scottish Parliament and which is subject to the normal parliamentary procedures, it will be an offence from 30 September to intentionally or recklessly harass the animals within the designated areas.

This announcement is a step in the right direction but comes more than 3 years after the public consultation, to which WDC responded with our colleagues at Scottish Environment Link

There has been much discussion around the UK about the value of MPAs for species that move over wide areas. WDC strongly supports all marine protected areas for mobile marine species, where whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals are shown to use these areas for important activities such as feeding or breeding.

Ultimately, the UK has committed to put an ‘ecologically coherent network of MPAs’ in place. In addition to designating haul out sites for seals, we currently have less than a handful of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs – one kind of MPA) to protect bottlenose dolphins under European legislation and there are some existing SACs for grey and harbour seal haul out sites.

WDC has been providing evidence and pressure to the various administrations in the UK to designate MPAs for other mobile marine species.

Most urgently, we need

  1. Designation of a network of SACs for harbour porpoises;
  2. Designation of the Sound of Barra SAC with bottlenose dolphins as a qualifying feature;
  3. Investigation and designation of SACs for feeding areas for harbour seals (at sea, away from their haul out sites);
  4. Designation of Search Locations as MPAs for minke whales and Risso’s dolphins in Scottish waters;
  5. Thorough investigation and designation of MCZs for whales and dolphins in English and Welsh waters;
  6. Precautionary,  enforceable and transparent management measures of all sites that make up the network; and,
  7. Ongoing Government funding to collect local and national field data to help fill the gaps in the network, including for white-beaked dolphins.