Rescuers unable to shepherd whales back out to sea due to rough conditions and their size.

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.

The 9th Meeting of the Parties to ASCOBANS concluded last Friday, 11 September 2020. Originally scheduled to take place in Brussels, the meeting was held virtually as a result of travel restrictions caused by the corona crisis. New resolutions were adopted on the critically endangered Harbour Porpoise population of the Baltic proper, on marine debris and on food availability and resource depletion.  Delegates also approved the Best Practice on Cetacean Post-mortem Investigation and Tissue Sampling and approved amendments to existing resolutions on the conservation of the Common Dolphin, bycatch, underwater noise and responses to stranding incidents.