Whales: Their Emerging Right to Life

Right rare whales

The collapse of the International Whaling Commission's discussions on the resumption of limited commercial whaling only highlights the pressure that still exists on these species. And new evidence from a survey of one population reveals how perilous it is, even after the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. The North Pacific right whale was the subject of hunting in the gulf of Alaska from...

Whales from Space: Counting Southern Right Whales by Satellite

We describe a method of identifying and counting whales using very high resolution satellite imagery through the example of southern right whales breeding in part of the Golfo Nuevo, Península Valdés in Argentina. Southern right whales have been extensively hunted over the last 300 years and although numbers have recovered from near extinction in the early 20(th) century, current populations ar...

Associations between North Pacific right whales and their zooplanktonic prey in the southeastern Bering Sea

Due to the seriously endangered status of North Pacific right whales Eubalaena japonica, an improved understanding of the environmental factors that influence the species’ distribution and occurrence is needed to better assess the effects of climate change and industrial activities on the population. Associations among right whales, zooplankton, and the physical environment were examined in the...

The right to forego life-sustaining treatment: legal trends and emerging issues.

Euthanasia: Right to life vs right to die