IFAW: Whale Program

JOIN THE ADVENTURE! SHARE THE WONDER!

Travel around the world with IFAW as we work to save whales and protect the oceans. Our scientists, educators and conservationists travel to every ocean in the world, defending whales from pollution, habitat destruction, commercial whalers and more.

With your help, we can do even more:
Explore our whale projects around the world.
Learn more about threats and solutions.
Help save whales by supporting IFAW programs.

WHALE DETECTION

IFAW and partners developed an acoustic buoy that listens for right whale calls. When the buoys detect a right whale, the recording is beamed via satellite to analysts on shore. Ships then receive an alert to avoid fatal ship strikes.
Click here to see how it works.

SONG OF THE WHALE TOUR

Take an interactive tour of IFAW’s one-of-a-kind whale research vessel, Song of the Whale. Through the interactive tour, you’ll see how researches live, while exploring the oceans to learn more about whales.
Click here to take the interactive tour.

WHALES AND FISHERIES

Whales are being killed all over the world in large numbers. Meanwhile, the fisheries have been suffering from a dramatic drop in the number of fish in the oceans. Whaling advocates are saying whales are eating all of the fish.
Click here to watch an enlightening video.

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Latest IFAW Blogs

Could ending commercial whaling help fight climate change?

Commercial whaling could have a new mark against it — carbon emissions associated with climate change. Even as the IWC is considering the possibility of ending the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling, some scientists are pointing to evidence that killing whales may speed climate change. Or, rather, that leaving them alive may help slow climate change.

The United States CAN be a leader in whale conservation again!

With a terrible new “deal” for whaling on the table at the International Whaling Commission that could effectively allow commercial whaling and trade in whale meat for the first time since the commercial whaling moratorium, we at IFAW are even more dedicated to getting the US government to step up to be a real leader in whale conservation. When we launched our campaign to do just that (more…)

A Short Interview with a Giant

My friend Sidney Holt is a giant. He is one of the most influential marine biologists of the 20th Century. Sidney is really old. He was born in 1926 and educated at the University of Reading in the UK.
In 1957, together with Ray Beverton, Sidney wrote a famous book — “On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations,” the most widely cited fisheries book ever published and the genesis (more…)

Peace for our time! (By Earth Day please!)

Sir Geoffrey Palmer of New Zealand is a seriously distinguished man, a serious politician and a serious constitutional lawyer, who, refreshingly, doesn’t take himself too seriously. And he makes a serious pitch for the proposal produced by the Chairman’s Support Group report prepared during five closed door sessions he himself has chaired over the past 10 months.
The latest version of Sir Geoffrey’s pitch has today been posted publicly on the IWC website making (more…)

Commission at Crossroads: Conservation or Commercial Whaling?

OK, whale huggers, bear with me here: The so-called “Small Working Group” of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) opens today in sunny St. Pete Beach, Florida. In truth, with 30-plus countries participating, the Group is not Small. In fact, finding that number unwieldy, the current Chair of the Commission, Chilean Ambassador Carlos Maquieira, last year formed a “Chairman’s Support Group” (let’s call it the “X-tra Small Working (more…)