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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...

Scottish town cuts links with Faroes over cruel whale hunts

A Scottish town has severed its links with the Faroes in protest at the annual whale and dolphin hunts that take place on the islands.

Wick, in Caithness, has been twinned with Klaksvik (the second largest town on the Faroe Islands) for 20 years.  There have been regular exchange visits in that time but, in a letter sent this week, local councillors in Wick wrote to the mayor of Klaksvik to announce that they would be severing all contact as a result of the “cruel”, “barbaric” and “unnecessary” hunts (known locally as grinds).

Every year in the Faroe Islands, hundreds of pilot whales and other species including bottlenose dolphins, Atlantic white-sided dolphins and northern bottlenose whales, are hunted for their meat. 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.