Island Nation Announces Mongolia-sized Sanctuary for Whales & Dolphins

Dolphins, whales, and dugongs will be safe from hunting in the waters surrounding the Pacific nation of Palau.  The establishment of a marine mammal sanctuary covering over 230,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) of the nation's waters, an area the size of Mongolia, was announced at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan.

"Palau's dugongs are the most isolated and endangered population in the world. [...] This sanctuary will promote sustainable whale-watching tourism, already a growing multi-million dollar global industry [...]," says Palau's Minister of the Environment, Natural Resources and Tourism Harry Fritz.

Although many populations of whales are rebounding after centuries of commercial whaling, some are still threatened by whaling by Iceland, Japan, and Norway, as well as the pollution.  Dolphins are often killed as by-catch and suffer from widespread marine pollution.

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