The 9th Meeting of the Steering Group for the ASCOBANS Conservation Plan for Harbour Porpoises in the North Sea (the North Sea Group) took place online from 20th to 21st January 2021. Parties reported on implementation of the Actions listed in the Conservation Plan, such as bycatch observation programmes, review of current pingers / development of alternative pingers and gear modifications, review of the stock structure of harbour porpoises, and collection of incidental porpoise catch data through stranding networks.

The CMS Secretariat is deeply saddened to announce that Robert Andrew Vagg, the Convention’s long-serving English language Editor and Report Writer passed away in the University Hospital of Bonn today. His sudden and unexpected death is a tragic loss for CMS and the entire CMS Family. Robert initially joined the Secretariat in 2005 and has been working as principle writer and editor in the shared Communications Unit of the CMS and AEWA Secretariat since the creation of the Unit in 2014. He also served as the report writer to many CMS and CMS Family-related meetings, including for AEWA, ASCOBANS, the Sharks, Dugongs, and Raptors MOUs.

A new citizen science app ‘Sea Watcher’ has been released to log sightings of marine megafauna in the European waters.

The topic of beaked whales was raised at the 9th Meeting of the Parties (MOP9, 7-11 September 2020) because of the strandings that had occurred in the UK, Ireland, the Faroes and elsewhere.  Many of the species were categorised as Data Deficient under IUCN, and the level of monitoring at sea was inadequate.   The MOP agreed to establish an intersessional working group (IWG) on Beaked Whales to bring together experts to collect data of recent strandings, population abundance and distribution, to discuss potential reasons for the strandings, and report back to the 26th Meeting of the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee.