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
Southern Resident whales

Ambitious plan to free captive orca Lolita announced

The new owner of the Miami Seaquarium in the US has announced that it is...
Gray whale

UN adopts High Seas Treaty to protect the ocean

At the UN 'High Seas Treaty' negotiations in New York, a historic vote for the...

Hopes raised for whale and dolphin protection after last minute landmark nature agreement

WDC's Ed Goodall (far right) at COP15 with Thérèse Coffey (centre) UK Secretary of State...

WDC orca champion picks up award

Beatrice Whishart MSP picks up her Nature Champion award The Scottish Environment LINK, an organisation...

BP oil disaster affects dolphin birth rates five years on

New research has revealed that dolphins living an area affected by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill are now struggling to give birth to young.

The US government study looked closely at the population of common bottlenose in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, an area that was covered in slicks at the time of the disaster. Scientists tracked the health of the population for four years, including 10 pregnant dolphins. Only two of the dolphins went on to give birth to calves.

Previous government-led studies have shown diseases found in dolphins around the Barataria Bay area were consistent with exposure to oil. These include lung disease and hormonal abnormalities, and of those dolphins studied by the scientists, up to 17% were expected to die of illness related to oil pollution.