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Dolphin death leads to trawler ban in Australian fishery

Dolphin death leads to trawler ban in Australian fishery

Just over a month after a 95-metre factory fishing trawler, the Geelong Star, had to return to port following two incidents of dolphins and seals dying in its fishing nets, a ninth dolphin has died, leading to a complete ban on all factory trawling in the area known as zone 6, off New South Wales…

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Where is Wave?

Some worrying news from WDC’s dolphin adoption programme in Adelaide, Australia… Port River resident Wave has not been seen since mid-September and anxiety is mounting among local dolphin watchers. Wave was sighted with a very small dead calf we suspect was still born on September 10 and, as is normal in the species, protected it…

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New species of humpback dolphin discovered in Australia

After more than 10 years of scientific collaboration, researchers in Australia have found evidence that there are in fact four species of humpback dolphin as opposed to the previously considered two – although the idea of there being three species has long been considered. The four species identified in the humpback (Sousa) genus are –…

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Want to name an Australian baby dolphin?

I have been studying a community of some 50 resident dolphins living in the Port River estuary (Adelaide, Australia) for the past 25 years. These dolphins are perhaps the most urbanised in the whole world, living as they do almost in the heart of a city of a million people. About twenty years ago I observed…

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New Australian Government Puts The World’s Largest MPA On Hold

The incoming Conservative Government has set aside previously agreed management plans and is instigating a review to determine future boundaries and acceptable activities. The Government has cited the reasons for its decision as a need for ‘genuine consultation with fishers and other stakeholders’. The Government has been caught hook, line and sinker by the commercial…

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Are Japanese whalers hunting whales from Australia?

Andrew Darby, author and friend of the whales, reports that ‘Australian scientists have tracked a minke whale from the Great Barrier Reef deep into the subantarctic for the first time’. There has been concern for some time that Japan has been hunting endangered minke whales in the North Pacific, but now it appears that minke…

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Adelaide dolphin Wave grieves the loss of her calf

This past week we watched with great sadness the way a mother dolphin grieves for her dead calf. Port River dolphin Wave is known to have given birth to a calf on Sunday, September 22 but the baby was either still born or died almost immediately after being born. For the next five days Wave…

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Dolphin shot in Australian sanctuary

There have been calls for more rangers to patrol the area around the Adelaide’s Port River dolphin sanctuary following the discovery of a shotgun pellet in a young dolphin found dead in the areas outer harbour. Three other dolphins have been found dead in the sanctuary in recent weeks and WDC believes that the deaths…

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