Skip to content
All news
  • All news
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Corporates
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
  • Stranding
  • Whale watching
Vaquita. Photo Thomas Jefferson

Scientific Committee gives first ever official species extinction warning

Photo: Thomas Jefferson We have welcomed the urgent call by experts to protect the vaquita...
blue whale

Whale fossil from Peru may have been heavier than blue whale

Scientists examining the bones of a 39 million-year-old ancient whale have concluded that it may...
Humpback whale © Christopher Swann

Humpback whales breach in synchronisation

Humpback whales are renowned for their incredible acrobatic displays, but a family in the USA...
Long-finned pilot whale

Unusual activity witnessed before pilot whale stranding

Just days after a pod of long-finned pilot whales stranded on an island in the...

Georgia Aquarium to fight for permit to import 18 wild beluga whales

The Georgia Aquarium in the US is to seek to overturn a recent US government agency decision preventing the import of 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia.  

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the US federal body that oversees the country’s marine resources refused to grant a permit to the aquarium in August that would have allowed the belugas to be brought in the US for display to the public. WDC strongly supported this decision and we are disappointed that Georgia Aquarium has now chosen to fight against it.

NMFS turned down the permit because of a failure to demonstrate that the import would not have a significant adverse impact on belugas in the wild. In addition, at the time five of the belugas proposed for import were likely still nursing young dependent upon their mothers, a direct violation of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Georgia Aquarium’s decision to challenge this reflects a disregard for the integrity of the Act and the vulnerability of this population of wild belugas. Public opposition to this proposed import was overwhelming and, in combination with the strong science and evidence supporting a negative impact on the future of the affected population that underpinned the agency’s decision, calls into question Georgia Aquarium’s commitment to conservation.