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WDC2023-007 NMLC Release (16)

Seal Rescued in Marshfield Released Back Into The Wild

For Immediate Release, May 31, 2023 PLYMOUTH, MA - A young male grey seal that...

Norway ups whale kill numbers and removes whale welfare protections

The whaling season in Norway has begun on the back of disturbing announcements from the...
Image taken from an unmanned hexacopter at >100ft during a research collaboration between NOAA/SWFSC, SR3 and the Coastal Ocean Research Institute. Research authorized by NMFS permit #19091.

Southern Resident orca petition to list them under Oregon Endangered Species Act advanced

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted today to advance a petition seeking to protect...
Hysazu Photography

WDC and Conservation Partners Continue to Seek Oregon Endangered Species Protection for Southern Resident Orcas

On Friday, April 21st, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will determine whether the petition...

Over 250 whales die in Faroes hunts

It has emerged that over 250 pilot whales have been slaughtered in just one day in the Faroes.  The two hunts (or grinds) took place in the killing cove of Bøur, where 111 pilot whales were slaughtered, and one just a few hours later in Tórshavn, where 142 pilot whales were killed.  The total killed in this year’s hunts in the Faroes is already up to 429.

Every year in the Faroe Islands, a territory of Denmark, hundreds of pilot whales and other species including bottlenose dolphins, Atlantic white-sided dolphins and northern bottlenose whales, are hunted for their meat. The techniques used are intensely stressful and cruel. Entire family groups are rounded up out at sea by small motor boats and driven to the shore. Typically, once they are stranded in shallow water, blunt-ended metal hooks are inserted into their blowholes and used to drag the whales up the beach, where they are killed with a knife cut to their major blood vessels.

Well over 3,000 pilot whales have been killed since the beginning of 2010, raising serious human health, animal welfare and conservation concerns. Local people risk ingesting high levels of toxic compounds found in pilot whales if they continue to eat pilot whale meat.

pilot whale hunt in Faroes