Pro-whaling nations have lost two early votes as this year’s International Whaling Commission meeting began. BBC

Schoolchildren in the western coastal district of Wakayama are now being offered an unusual addition to their lunch menus… Whale. BBC

The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the only international forum devoted to whales, begins on June 20 in Ulsan, South Korea, a former whaling port.

The main session of the International Whaling Commission opens on Monday with pro-whaling nations pushing to catch more whales despite international opposition that wants to halt or curb the trade.

You can attempt to whale watch in almost all conditions, with varying degrees of success; but fog is not one of them. This was the situation that prevailed for much of the weekend during the IWDG’s first whale-watching course of 2005 on Cape Clear Island

Britain’s biggest fish appears to be moving to Scottish waters – and experts say it may be down to global warming. BBC

A federal judge has ordered the US government to draw up plans to protect North Pacific right whales, thought to have been extinct until they were rediscovered in the Bering Sea three years ago.

Measurement of fresh water entering the Atlantic will help climate predictions. Nature

They survived the dinosaurs, but leatherback turtles may have moved one step closer to extinction when last December’s tsunami washed away some of their most important nesting beaches in India’s Nicobar islands.

South Africa will next week seek to defeat a Japanese proposal to expand whale hunting as it would threaten a growing industry catering to people who enjoy watching the huge mammals, a senior official said.