“Since 2020, the population of whales has grown by about 7 percent. In 2024, the most recent year for which there is data available, the whale consortium estimated that there were 384 whales, an increase of about 2 percent from the year before. And in 2025, Pettis said, there were zero mortalities of right whales detected.

This year’s calving season, which began in November and runs through April, has brought more promising news. So far, 18 new calves have been spotted, including one on New Year’s Day. An aerial survey team identified a calf swimming off the coast of Florida with its mother, Boomerang, named for her boomerang-shaped white scar.

‘We’re having a great year,’ said Ryan Schosberg, a member of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. He has been conducting aerial surveys to spot whales. Last year, there were only 11 calves spotted, he said.”

From The Boston Globe.

“Numbers of critically-endangered flapper skate are beginning to recover in Scotland, new research has suggested.

The study, conducted by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, involved interviews with commercial fishers from all over Scotland, who reported a significant increase in flapper skate caught while fishing for other species over the past four years.

Half of those interviewed had seen them daily.”

From BBC.

“As of 2025, about 9.6% of the world’s oceans are now covered by marine protected areas, according to the latest global tracking data by the World Database on Protected Areas. This marks a 1.2% increase in 2025, up from 8.4% coverage in 2024.

There are now 16,608 marine protected areas (MPAs) globally, covering nearly 35 million square kilometers (13.5 million square miles) of the ocean — an area more than twice the size of Russia.”

From Mongabay.

“The Lesser Antillean iguana is a critically endangered species that has disappeared from much of its range across the Eastern Caribbean.

The small and uninhabited islet of Prickly Pear East, near Anguilla, is not what you might describe as a romantic holiday destination full of young hopefuls searching for love.

But for the Lesser Antillean iguana, it has proved to be just that…

In 2016, with the invasive iguanas multiplying rapidly across the main island of Anguilla, conservationists from the Anguilla National Trust began translocating the last Lesser Antillean iguanas from the mainland – 23 in total – to an alien-free islet, Prickly Pear East.

Less than five years on, new survey data has revealed that efforts are paying off, with more than 300 adults and adolescents counted on Prickly Pear East. The island now represents one of only five sites in the world where Lesser Antillean Iguanas are thriving, safe from invasive alien species.”

From Euronews.