UNEP/CMS: Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises Suffer Dramatic Declines from Bycatch in Fishing Nets

For 86 per cent of all toothed whale species, entanglement in gillnets, traps, weirs, purse seines, longlines and trawls is resulting in an unsustainably high death toll.  This is among the findings of a report published today (24.10.2011) by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals under the UN Environment Programme. (UNEP/CMS).

The report is an encyclopedia on the 72 species of toothed whales compiled by Professor Boris Culik of Kiel University in Germany and represents the most recent scientific findings on the distribution, migration, behaviour and threats to this suborder of the cetaceans, which includes sperm whales, beaked whales, porpoises and dolphins which have teeth rather than the baleen of other whales.  Click here to read the press release.

For 86 per cent of all toothed whale species, entanglement in gillnets, traps, weirs, purse seines, longlines and trawls is resulting in an unsustainably high death toll. This is among the findings of a report published today (24.10.2011) by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals under the UN Environment Programme. (UNEP/CMS).

The report is an encyclopedia on the 72 species of toothed whales compiled by Professor Boris Culik of Kiel University in Germany and represents the most recent scientific findings on the distribution, migration, behaviour and threats to this suborder of the cetaceans, which includes sperm whales, beaked whales, porpoises and dolphins which have teeth rather than the baleen of other whales. Click here to read the press release.