How Traditional Food Is Helping Communities in a Changing Arctic
As hunting grows hazardous, Arctic community centers provide meals of whale and seal.
Whales
How California's Clean Air Regulations Have Reduced Whale Strikes by Cargo Ships
Rules intended to protect people from pollution are simultaneously saving the lives of whales by slowing down cargo ships, but researchers say more still needs to be done.
Listening for Humpback Songs Across the Open Ocean
Researchers are hoping to discover new travel routes of the Pacific humpback by utilizing a robot that monitors their unique means of long-distance communication.
Field Notes: Waiting for Whales in Utqiagvik, Alaska
Utqiagvik, Alaska: High above the Arctic Circle, on a slab of sea ice a mile from shore, an Inupiaq whaling crew watches for a passing bowhead whale under the light of the midnight sun.
How Do We Stop Ships From Fatally Striking Migrating Whales?
Fatal collisions between ships and blue whales are far too common. Luckily, there are scientists creating new technology to fix that.
Why Do Most Orca Pregnancies End in Miscarriage? Look Upstream.
Orcas are losing their babies at an unprecedented rate. The solution may lie 400 miles away.
An Alarming Number of California Whales Are Getting Caught in Fishing Lines
California has seen a record-breaking number of whale entanglements over the last three years. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state for failing to protect its endangered species.
Whales With a Dam Problem
Orcas in the Pacific Northwest are struggling to boost their numbers. Could dams have something to do with it?
Should Ocean Noise Be Recognized as a Pollutant?
Marine ecosystems are just as vulnerable to seismic noise as other types of pollution.
Since We Last Spoke: Idiosyncratic Whale Songs
Updates to past Pacific Standard print stories.
The Whale Wrangler: Freeing Tangled Leviathans
The world’s largest animals get snarled in every kind of sea gear that has rope—mooring lines, gillnets, shrimp pots, anchors. Scott Landry figures out how to wrestle them free.
Saving Whales by Putting a Price on Their Head?
Scientists suggest that tradable harvest quotas may reduce the slaughter of whales.
New Answers to Whale of a Mystery
Biologist Graham Slater explains that the evolution of whales into behemoths of the sea occurred in evolutionary spurts and not in a slow and steady process.
Whales and Angels in Marine Protected Areas
Mexico’s Sea of Cortez has always had a wealth of whales, but even protected areas can’t stave off other pressures on the leviathans.
Rerouting Gray Whales By Audio
Researchers are testing a new technology to protect whales from human enterprises by rerouting them.
Right Whales, Wrong Place
The good news is that endangered whales can be found where they were thought extinct. The bad news is that a sea-going superhighway may soon overtake their unknown refuge.
We Get Letters — The Future Is Not Plastics
Letters to the editor: Decompartmentalizing right whales, vinclozolin, bisphenol A, krill and a few other things.
Slow: Whale Xing
Biologist Christopher Clark builds sonic buoys that help ships avoid running down the last of the right whales.