AWI Quarterly Articles | Marine Wildlife

Tilikum, the 12,000-pound male orca at SeaWorld Orlando who was featured in the documentary Blackfish in 2013, was probably born in 1980, give or take a year. Ever since he killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau...

Two years ago, scientists estimated that only 100 vaquita porpoises remained in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. In April 2015, as vaquitas continued to die due to entanglement in fishing gear, the Mexican government proposed...

Dr. Naomi Rose, AWI’s marine mammal scientist, traveled to China in December to visit and evaluate several captive marine mammal facilities. She also gave two public presentations in Chengdu, one of China’s largest cities.

In a sure sign of changing times, a resort development on Oahu has abandoned plans to include a captive dolphin attraction at its facility. Atlantis Ko Olina (a new addition to Kerzner International’s Atlantis Resorts...

Dr. Alexey Yablokov, described as Russia’s “environmental knight” and as the “grandfather of Russian ecology,” passed away on January 10 at the age of 83.

The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, by Mark Leiren-Young, tells a fascinating story. Everything has to start somewhere, and captive display of this or that species is no exception. In most cases, the first...

Serendipity tells the story of ecologist James A. Estes’ work researching the unexpected collapse of sea otter populations in the Aleutians—specifically, how these declines played into a larger collapse of other coastal-living marine mammals in...

AWI wildlife attorney Tara Zuardo and wildlife biologist D.J. Schubert joined other animal welfare advocates, conservationists, government delegates, scientists, and industry representatives at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the...

The 66th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) took place October 20–28, 2016, in Portorož, Slovenia, 70 years after the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) was ratified.

The Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment in the Wider Caribbean Region—commonly referred to as the Cartagena Convention—is the only legally binding regional environmental treaty focused on the protection of biodiversity...