Italy’s age-old custom of swordfishing isn’t likely to be stopped by EU law — instead last year’s ban on dangerous nets has created a league of ‘pirate’ fishermen willing to go to extreme measures for the days’ catch.

Dozens of wild dolphins have been caught in the strife-torn Solomon Islands and are being held in makeshift pens as part of a scheme by a foreign syndicate to sell them around the world.

In light of an alarming recent increase in mortality events, it is becoming clear that man-made noise, at different intensity levels, negatively affects cetacean populations in important ways.

China supports international efforts to actively conserve and rationally exploit whales, but is reserving its decision on setting up whale sanctuaries until it receives more scientific data, a Chinese fisheries official said Wednesday.

Danish officials have lost sight of a whale that turned up in the Oeresund Strait dividing Denmark and Sweden at the weekend, and warned that it could wreak havoc to sailboats.

A porpoise found dead in May after Navy exercises near the San Juan Islands showed signs of internal bleeding that naval sonar could have caused, environmentalists reported yesterday.

The 12-metre-wide remains of a sea creature found by the Chilean navy are puzzling marine scientists, who think it may be a new species. Full Story

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Wednesday that Japan — one of the world’s biggest consumers of whale meat — should not leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and should keep seeking support inside the group for its bid to restart comm

The National Marine Fisheries Service is lining up equipment and experts for CT scans and other tests on about a dozen harbor porpoises found dead in May, when the Navy conducted sonar testing in area waters.

Marine scientists know that two-thirds of all right whales head to the Bay of Fundy each summer. But where the remaining one-third of the population migrates remains a mystery.