Environmental Issues: Wildlife

Wildlife Main Page

All Documents in Wildlife Tagged whales

End Commercial Whaling
Renegade whale hunting threatens the survival of endangered species around the world
Overview

Whales are still being killed across the world's oceans -- despite an international ban on commercial whaling -- by countries that exploit loopholes and label their hunts as "scientific research."

Laguna San Ignacio Gray Whale Nursery
Photo Album

Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California, Mexico is best known as winter home to the gray whale. Every year the whales migrate over 10,000 miles from their summer feeding grounds above the Arctic Circle to the waters along the west coast of the Baja peninsula, where they have adopted the warm, shallow lagoons for their calving nurseries. Here they spend the months of December to March birthing, feeding their calves, breaching, and spyhopping.

Go Below the Surface of the Gulf Oil Disaster
An interactive guide to the Gulf spill's effects on one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world
Guide

It appears that only a fraction of the millions of gallons of crude oil that have flooded into the Gulf of Mexico rises to the surface. A lot of the oil remains dissolved or dispersed in the Gulf’s waters, contaminating one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world. Go below the surface of the Gulf oil disaster with this interactive graphic.

Protecting Whales from Dangerous Sonar
NRDC takes the U.S. military to court to save marine mammals from underwater noise
News

NRDC has been fighting for more than a decade for prudent safeguards that would protect whales and other marine mammals from military sonar exercises -- eventually taking the fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Whale Songs in the City
Whales have been recorded singing near New York harbor, but noise pollution and shipping traffic put them at risk
News

Whales have been recorded singing near New York harbor, but noise pollution puts them at risk.

Lethal Sounds
The use of military sonar poses a deadly threat to whales and other marine mammals
News

Whales and other marine mammals face a grave threat from military sonar and other noise in the oceans. Manmade sound waves can drown out the noises that marine mammals rely on for their very survival, causing serious injury and even death.

Sounding the Depths II
The Rising Toll of Sonar, Shipping and Industrial Ocean Noise on Marine Life
Report

Ocean noise produced by military sonar, oil and gas exploration, and shipping traffic can have impacts on marine life ranging from long-term behavioral change to hearing loss to death. This November 2005 NRDC report reviews the science, surveys the leading contributors to the problem, and suggest what might be done to reduce the impacts of noise on the sea -- before the proliferation of noise sources makes the problem unmanageable.

Wildlife on the Brink
Overview

The Endangered Species Act is the best tool we have to ensure that future generations will inherit a nation of soaring forests, redrock canyons, lumbering grizzlies and tiny songbirds. Without its protections, we risk losing hundreds of species of plants and animals across the nation to pollution and private development. See our photo gallery of endangered wildlife and learn about the terrain they need to survive.

Whale Nursery Saved
An NRDC-led coalition stopped Mitsubishi from building a saltworks at Laguna San Ignacio.
News

Mitsubishi and the Mexican government announced on March 2, 2000 that they are abandoning plans to build a massive industrial salt plant in southern Baja California. The Mexican government had proposed to construct the saltworks in partnership with the Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan at Laguna San Ignacio, the last undisturbed birthing and nursery grounds of the gray whale.

Mission to Laguna San Ignacio
Face-to-face with the gray whales at a threatened nursery.
History

Getting this close to a gray whale is rare for anyone, but for those on this special journey -- including actors Pierce Brosnan and Glenn Close -- living with the magnificent gray whales for five days touched them deeply, and in some cases changed their lives.

For additional policy documents, see the NRDC Document Bank.
For older publications available only in print, click here.