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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 -...

Mistaken Identity…

Our fundamental knowledge about the wonderful Bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth/East Coast of Scotland and especially those individuals in the WDC Adopt a Dolphin programme comes from the ability to be able to identify individuals within the population – the dorsal fin on the dolphins back being the biggest and easiest part of a dolphin to readily photograph as you can see in the photo below. The dark adult alongside the young, lighter coloured dolphin has some notches out of the rear edge of the dorsal fin and some scratches as well – all these marks and notches are made by interacting with each other and makes each dolphins dorsal fin totally unique. I was showing the photo below to some visitors recently and one person remarked on the “Mum and Baby” photo and I had to explain that just because a young dolphin has an adult beside it – that doesn’t neccessarily mean that the adult is its Mum…

The adult next to young ID#1198 isn’t actually Mum (Zephyr) at all, but is in fact ID#105 “Sundance”, one of the big powerful male dolphins and possibly even this youngsters father, so, appearances can be deceptive sometimes…