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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 -...

More bad news as two humpback dolphin species are elevated to Endangered and Critically Endangered status!

Just the other day i blogged about how, as a direct result of bycatch, the IUCN had uplisted both the Irrawaddy dolphin and the finless porpoise to Endangered status. I thought that was depressing enough but more bad news was to follow with the elevation of Atlantic humpback dolphins to Critically Endangered status and Indian Ocean humpback dolphins being elevated to Endangered status – what is happening to our flippered friends? Why are we decimating thier populations with such ease and consistency?

It was only recently that the Indo-Pacific dolphin was separated into distinct species and this news of their precariously low population numbers brings home the magnitude of the situation facing humpback dolphins across their range. 

Atlantic humpback dolphins are only found in shallow, nearshore waters along the western coast of north and central Africa. Only 20 years ago the species was classified as Data Deficient, meaning that we didn’t know enough about them to classify them, 10 years later research showed them to be Vulnerable, today that status is now Critically Endangered with the species having seen a reduction of approximately 80% in the past 75 years. The recdution in their numbers – approx. 1,500 mature individuals remain – is a direct result of bycatch and other coastal developments.

The Indian Ocean humpback dolphin was only recently classified as a distinct species from the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and is found, as its name suggests, in the Indian Ocean from South Africa to India. as with other humpback dolphins, they live in nearshore waters and have a restricted range, meaning that human activities, and predominantly bycatch, are resulting in their population decline.