Skip to content
All articles
  • All articles
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
Orca Lulu's body contained PCB levels 100x above the safe limit. Image: SMASS

Toxic tides, troubled whales: the toll of chemical pollution

In last week's blog, we examined the challenges whales and dolphins face as they travel...
Group of orcas at surface

Breaking barriers for whales and dolphins at the Convention of Migratory Species

Many species of whales, dolphins and porpoises undertake long journeys, encountering human-made obstacles along the...
Tokyo

WDC in Japan – Part 1: Finding allies in Tokyo

At the end of May, I embarked on an incredible journey to Japan on behalf...
Amazon river dolphins leaping

The state of river dolphin conservation

At Whale and Dolphin Conservation, we partner with conservationists and communities fighting to save river...
Researchers in Southeast Alaska studying whale poo

We’re funding crucial research on whale poo to combat the climate crisis

The ocean is one of the lungs of our planet, and whales help it to...
Narwhal surfacing

The unicorns of the sea must be protected – CITES

The narwhal, is under threat. Often referred to as the unicorns of the sea, narwhals,...
Sperm whales

We’re pushing governments for action for our climate heroes – whales

The climate crisis is the greatest threat to all life on Earth. But there is...
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...

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…