The carcass of a 15-meter male sperm whale washed ashore in Delray Beach, Oregon. An autopsy revealed severe vertebral damage with internal bleeding, consistent with a high-speed vessel strike. The sperm whale was found floating 24 kilometers offshore, and two days later the carcass drifted 13 kilometers offshore before finally stranding. According to the Cascadia…

2025 On May 28, at the launching ceremony of the fifth “National Dolphin Friendly Month,” the world’s first “International Small Cetacean Conservation Research Program ” was officially released to the public. This is China’s first international public welfare and conservation initiative to promote cetacean conservation technology and experience at sea, and will systematically integrate cutting-edge…

In May 2025, drone footage released by the animal protection organization TideBreakers showed a 23-year-old orca mother, Wikie, and her 11-year-old son, Keijo, trapped in abandoned pools of algae-infested, deteriorating water after the closure of France’s Antibes Marine Park. The park, which once received 1.2 million visitors a year, closed in January for violating France’s…

The U.S. Navy’s recent application to increase the number of whale collisions allowed in Southern California and Hawaii waters from three to five has sparked strong opposition from environmental groups. There have been a number of ship collisions in the region, including the death of a mother and calf by an Australian Navy ship. Although…

A proposal submitted by the China Green Development Council (CGDC) on “Open Propeller Deaths of Endangered Species” to be discussed at the World Conservation Congress (WCC) in 2025 calls for mandatory installation of acoustic warning systems in Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs). Studies have shown that physical injuries caused by ship propellers account for 19%…

The stranding of seven false killer whales, four of which died on May 5 at Howth Beach, Western Australia, Australia, was another major ecological event following the 2024 mass stranding of 157 false killer whales in Tasmania. Marine biologists suggest that the matrilineal social structure of false killer whales leads to “follow the leader” group…

According to a study published in the May 2025 issue of Nature Communications, blue whales off the coast of California, USA, ingest 10 million microplastics per day, and humpback whales 4 million. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) adsorbed on the surface of microplastics (e.g. polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)) are absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestinal tract,…

During the 2025 breeding season (November 2024 – April 2025), only 5 new calves were added to the North Atlantic right whale population, which continues to be at a low level (~370 extant). With mortality rates as high as 20% due to entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes, and with breeding intervals lengthening from…

In April 2025, an outbreak of the “worst ever” harmful algal bloom off the coast of Southern California in the United States resulted in the stranding of at least four cetaceans (humpback, minke, and gray whales) due to chondrichthyan acidosis. Autopsies showed that the cetaceans had concentrations of toxins well above safe thresholds and suffered…

Models published in Nature, Ecology and Evolution show that blue whales in the North Atlantic are ingesting an average of 12 million pieces of microplastics per day, far exceeding the 10 million pieces recorded in the 2022 California Current. The study suggests that these plastic particles enter the cetacean’s digestive system through filter-feeding behavior, potentially…