SOLOVETSKY ISLANDS, July 24, 2008 (AFP) - A young whale pokes its melon-shaped head into the cool morning air near this remote island, a sign its herd is thriving despite mounting threats in Russia's melting Arctic.

BUENOS AIRES, May 31, 2008 (AFP) - Argentine rocker Javier Calamaro took his tunes seven meters (yards) below ocean waves in a special capsule Saturday to play 'underwater music' to mark the arrival of migrating southern right whales.

DAKAR, May 21, 2008 (AFP) - Rescue efforts Wednesday could not save at least 30 long-finned pilot whales that became stranded overnight on a beach in the north of the Senegalese capital Dakar.

Environmental expert Haidar el Ali said the 81 whales that became lodged on Yoff-Thongor beach represented the biggest mass stranding of whales for 30 years in the west African nation.

LOS ANGELES, March 1, 2008 (AFP) - A federal court has ruled against President George W. Bush's bid to exempt the Navy from environmental laws when it uses sonar equipment considered potentially harmful to whales and other marine life, according to court documents.

LOS ANGELES, Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) - A Los Angeles judge has rejected a decision by President George W. Bush allowing the Navy to use sonar equipment accused of endangering marine life, stating there was no emergency to justify over-riding existing environmental laws, court documents showed Tuesday.

PARIS, Dec 19, 2007 (AFP) - A tiny deer-like mammal was the forerunner of whales, dolphins and porpoises, according to a study released on Wednesday by Nature, the weekly British science journal.

Whales are long suspected to have originated from four-footed mammals called artiodactyls that walked on land in South Asia and gradually adapted to live in the sea.

OTTAWA, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Canada Wednesday said a safe haven has been set aside in the Atlantic Ocean where the endangered North Atlantic right whale can feed and socialize without fear of colliding with large ships.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has designated the Roseway Basin, some 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) south of Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, as an 'Area to be Avoided' by commercial shipping, on a seasonal basis, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Global warming and changes to the Pacific ecosystem could be limiting the recovery of the Pacific gray whale and suggest permanent damage done by overfishing, scientists said in a new study Monday.

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of Washington found evidence to show that the gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), long believed a conservation success story with a fully recovered population after decades of over-fishing, are probably only one-quarter of original pre-whaling numbers.

WASHINGTON, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - An appeals court overturned Friday a ban on the US navy's use of sonar in upcoming training exercises off California that was aimed at protecting whales disturbed by the subsea emissions.

Reversing an August 6 decision in the longstanding battle between environmental groups and the US military over whale safety, the appeals court said the court that handled the case earlier had overstepped.

LOS ANGELES, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - The United States Navy was on Monday barred from using an ear-splitting sonar in upcoming wargames off the California coast alleged to be harmful to whales and other marine life.

In the latest twist to a long-running legal saga, federal judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled there was a 'near certainty' that the Navy's active sonar was harmful to the environment.