Turning the tide: 50 years of collaboration for whale and dolphin conservation

The report documents WWF's half-century of cetacean conservation, emphasizing the transition from lethal research to non-invasive methods and the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration. Key achievements include the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium, the creation of the Ross Sea Marine Sanctuary, and the re-routing of shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy. However, the report also highlights the critical failure to save the vaquita porpoise due to illegal gillnet fishing. It concludes by introducing the WWF Cetacean Global Initiative, focusing on bycatch, shipping, and critical habitat protection.

• The transition to non-lethal research in the 1970s, specifically photo-identification and underwater vocalization recording, allowed scientists to track individual whales and determine critical population health metrics like 'calving intervals'.
• The 1982 International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect in 1986, has enabled the recovery of several great whale populations, including most Southern Ocean humpback whales.
• The vaquita porpoise is on the brink of extinction with fewer than 30 individuals remaining as of November 2016, primarily due to bycatch in gillnets used for the illegal totoaba fish trade.
• In the Bay of Fundy, Canada, the re-routing of a shipping lane in 2003 reduced the risk of ship strikes for North Atlantic right whales by 80%, though the population has since declined to 412 animals by autumn 2018 due to climate-driven migration shifts and entanglement.
• The Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP) successfully mitigated the impact of oil and gas development in Russia's Sakhalin Islands, contributing to a population increase from 115 individuals in 2004 to 174 in 2015.
• WWF-Pakistan implemented a participatory observer program enlisting fishing vessel captains, which helped document the presence of the endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale and led to the designation of two new marine protected areas.
• In 2017, the Ross Sea Marine Sanctuary was established as the largest protected area on Earth, covering 2.06 million square kilometers to protect krill predators in the Southern Ocean.
• WWF has launched a Cetacean Global Initiative based on three pillars: addressing bycatch, managing shipping, and protecting critical habitats.

APA

Papastavrou, V. (2019). Turning the tide: 50 years of collaboration for whale and dolphin conservation. WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/794/4mcqmmkdiv_wwf_turning_the_tide_041019_1_cetaceans_report.pdf

Chicago

Papastavrou, Vassili. Turning the tide: 50 years of collaboration for whale and dolphin conservation. WWF International, 2019. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/794/4mcqmmkdiv_wwf_turning_the_tide_041019_1_cetaceans_report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Papastavrou |first1=Vassili |title=Turning the tide: 50 years of collaboration for whale and dolphin conservation |publisher=WWF International |date=April 2019 |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/794/4mcqmmkdiv_wwf_turning_the_tide_041019_1_cetaceans_report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{papastavrou2019turning, author = {Papastavrou, Vassili}, title = {{Turning the tide: 50 years of collaboration for whale and dolphin conservation}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2019}, month = apr, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/794/4mcqmmkdiv_wwf_turning_the_tide_041019_1_cetaceans_report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }