Jennifer Marohasy

THE Australian government is under pressure to secure the release of three Australian activists detained after boarding a Japanese whaling security ship the Shonan Maru No 2. But it is more likely the men will be taken to Japan to face legal action. Prisoners don’t usually get a lot of choice in what they have [...]

Good news! Traditional hunters have agreed to suspend the hunting of dugongs and turtles in North Queensland. More here.

I HAVE been a subscriber to the “Scientific American” for over 30 years. It used to be the most useful summary of the most important recent scientific discoveries. I have witnessed its slow and inexorable decline, to an organ of the environmental movement, an advocate of “global warming”, a peddler of extravagant cosmological theories, unflinching support [...]

LAST week the International Whaling Commission (IWC) met on the Portuguese island of Madeira and agreed that climate change is a threat to whales.   A decision on the Danish proposal for Greenland to hunt 10 humpback whales a year was postponed.  Australia’s Environment Minister was there and told the meeting that whale-watching is a growing [...]

Scientists fear melting sea ice could one day make killer whales the Hudson Bay’s top predator, a startling ecosystem shift and a blow for Inuit populations already reeling from dwindling polar bear numbers.  Read more here.

The Japan Whaling Association (JWA) today called on the Australian and New Zealand governments to close their ports to a Dutch vessel committing criminal acts in the Antarctic. The President of the JWA, Mr Keiichi Nakajima, said the Dutch vessel committing terror on the Antarctic high seas is running low on fuel and is apparently [...]

LAST night in The Southern Ocean, anti-whaling campaigners aboard The Steve Irwin rammed the Kaiko Maru from the starboard rear side. According to the Japanese whalers: The incident occurred when the Kaiko Maru was undertaking a detour in the ice pack area after completing the day’s research activities. The weather had deteriorated and fog had [...]

At least 150 whales have died in a mass stranding off Tasmania’s west coast, Australian authorities said on Sunday, despite the efforts of rescuers who managed to shepherd a small number back to the ocean. Read more here.

On Saturday I reported that 200 whales are trapped in ice in the Canadian Arctic. Today I received photographs of one of the groups of Narwhal trapped in one of the 11 open holes. The photographs were taken by Brian Koonoo.

LAST Sunday Inuit from Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic, discovered about 200 whales trapped in ice near Pond Inlet.  In the Arctic open water is starting to freeze-over with the onset of winter.  Yesterday the Inuit started culling the whales, known as Narwhal, apparently on the advice of their elders and in the belief that otherwise [...]