The federal government said harvesting tuna fish in the Pacific Ocean using a large net does not significantly affect nearby dolphin populations, but animal and environmental groups balked at the findings.

The Conservation Minister is stunned by a new report showing more than 2000 New Zealand species are threatened with extinction. Full Story

A team of coastguards has succeeded in freeing a whale which beached itself on rocks in Portland Harbour, Dorset. [Although reported as a juvenile humpback, we have it on good authority that this animal was in fact a minke whale – Ed.]

The mystery of an underwater noise that for years confounded Navy sonar operators in the North Pacific Ocean has been solved by a San Diego-based research team.

An unexpected visitor arrived off the coast of North East Lincolnshire on Christmas morning. A killer whale, nicknamed Noel by RSPCA workers, was reported to have been seen stranded at Stallingborough.

The 11-foot-long whale has well-defined hip sockets that suggest the animal had legs. Full Story

A whale that beached itself in Japan this summer has turned out to be the most complete specimen ever seen of a rare species, scientists have said. Full Story

The annual gray whale migration is under way and volunteers are marking their 25th anniversary as they set up observation stations along the Oregon coast to help visitors catch a glimpse of the swim to Mexico.

Japan signed a secret pact with Britain, the Netherlands and Norway on whaling in the Antarctic Ocean when those four nations and the Soviet Union finalized a treaty on catch quotas in 1962, according to Foreign Ministry documents declassified Monday. <

Ireland has threatened to go to the European Court of Justice to keep Spanish fishing boats out of its coastal waters in what the country’s fisheries minister warned could become a “a war of the seas”.