How can we prevent whales and dolphins from being caught and killed in fishing gear?
The people who earn a living from fishing (whether using nets, lines or ropes) do not want to catch whales and dolphins, yet fishing gear is accidentally killing hundreds of thousands every year.
Why is fishing gear a danger to whales and dolphins?
The fishing industry employs many types of capture techniques, including vast walls of netting; fishing lines up to 100km long, baited with thousands of hooks; and thousands of rope lines connected to traps on the ocean floor. Together these may create potentially deadly labyrinths through which a whale or dolphin must navigate.
Is this the biggest threat whales and dolphins face?
Like us, whales and dolphins breathe air, so when they get tangled up in a net, rope or fishing line it can be a race against time to reach the surface or to escape. In their desperation to escape and avoid suffocation, or in getting tangled in gear, some tear muscles, break teeth, and sheer off fins. The more they struggle, the more entangled they can become.
Some who break free carry pieces of gear wrapped around their heads, flippers, bodies or tails; swimming for months with the gear entrapping them and sometimes sawing into their flesh and even bones until they die from resulting infections or starvation. Those who escape can be left with painful injuries.
How your support can help
- Stronger laws protecting whales and dolphins – by supporting WDC, you can help us campaign for laws that reduce threats to whales and dolphins.
- Find safer ways to fish – you can help us work with scientists and fishermen to find innovative ways for fisheries to operate, and to develop and use technologies that are safer for whales and dolphins.
- Save species from extinction – help us to save species being driven to extinction by current fishing practices: Hector’s dolphin, Māui dolphin and the North Atlantic right whale are amongst those at most immediate risk. Accidental death in fishing gear is not the only threat to these species, but tackling this threat will help give them a fighting chance of survival.
Successes
- WDC was amongst the first to identify the welfare impacts of fishing gear on individual porpoises and dolphins.
- Persuading the NZ Government to take action to give greater protection to endangered Hector's dolphins and Māui dolphins.
- The UK is a whale and dolphin champion - thanks to WDC campaigning, the UK Fisheries Minister committed to the UK being a world leader in tackling the problem of whales and dolphins becoming caught in fishing gear.
- Reducing the risk of whale entanglements in the US - WDC’s helped to reduce the number of vertical (buoy) lines along the east coast, reducing the risk of entanglement to large whales.
- Reducing deaths of harbour porpoise in the US - as a member of the Harbour Porpoise Take Reduction Team, WDC helped to significantly reduce bycatch in gillnets, by requiring the use of ‘pingers,’ which make noises that alert porpoises to the nets.
Support our campaigns to make fishing safer
Whales and dolphins continue to die in fishing gear. They need your help. Save them by getting involved today.
Our campaigns
Whales and dolphins continue to die in fishing gear. They need your help. Save them by getting involved today.
Save New Zealand dolphins
Fishing nets are pushing New Zealand dolphins to extinction. It's not too late to save them but we need to act fast. Join our major international campaign.
Protect UK dolphins, porpoises and whales after Brexit
Their future hangs in the balance. Help us make sure the governments of the UK put strong laws in place to protect dolphins, porpoises and whales from fishing gear in UK seas after we leave the EU.
Please help us make fishing safer
By adopting a whale or dolphin, by making a donation, or by fundraising for WDC, you can help us stop the accidental deaths of whales and dolphins.
Adopt
Adopt a whale or dolphin and help stop accidental deaths.
Donate
Your gifts help us take action to help keep whales and dolphins safe and free.
Fundraise
Run, bake, walk, cycle… what could you do to help?
