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Dolphins captured for captivity in Taiji. Image: Hans Peter Roth

Loved and killed – whales and dolphins in Japan

Protests and criticism from outside Japan in response to the slaughter of whales and dolphins...
Irrawaddy dolphin

Helping fishers protect dolphins in Sarawak, Borneo

Fishing nets are bad news for dolphins and porpoises, so we're working with local fishers...
Dolphin watching from Chanonry Point, Scotland. Image: WDC/Charlie Phillips

Discovering inner peace – whale and dolphin watching and mental wellbeing

Guest blog If you've ever seen whales or dolphins in the wild, you'll know that...
Whale tail

An ocean of hope

In a monumental, jaw-dropping demonstration of global community, the nations of the world made history...
The infamous killing cove at Taiji, Japan

Why the Taiji dolphin hunt can never be justified

Supporters of the dolphin slaughter in Japan argue that killing a few hundred dolphins every...
Image: Peter Linforth

Tracking whales from space will help us save them

Satellite technology holds one of the keys to 21st century whale conservation, so we're exploring...
Fishers' involvement is crucial. Image: WDC/JTF

When porpoises and people overlap

We're funding a project in Hong Kong that's working with fishing communities to help save...

Mindful conservation – why we need a new respect for nature

'We should look at whales and dolphins as the indigenous people of the seas -...

Unlocking the secrets of whale and dolphin societies

Arguably more than anything else, photo-identification, or “photo-ID,” opened the door to our appreciation of whales and dolphins as individuals. WDC researchers and close collaborators have had a key role in the development and use of photo-ID, and it’s still the fundamental tool that we use in our work with North Atlantic right whales off Massachusetts, USA; Risso’s dolphins in Scotland; orcas in Kamchatka, Baird’s beaked whales in the Commander Islands, both in Russia; bottlenose dolphins in Scotland and in South Australia; and humpback whales in various studies in the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Recently I was asked by Hakai Magazine, a new online magazine, to write a story about a legendary conference that helped launch whale photo-ID as the primary tool of whale research, some 40 years ago, and “where we have got to” since then.

Where we have got to is that our studies of individual whales and whale families and pods have led now to a consideration of culture and the rights of whales — work that is central to what WDC is all about.

I loved researching and writing this story, and it forms part of the background for a new book I’m writing on what we’ve learned from field studies of whales and dolphins.

If you like the story, please share it, and we welcome your comments.

Humpback whale tail flukes showing individual identification. Humpback whale fluke © FEROP