Our staff photographer Julie Larsen Maher recently snapped this great shot of a humpback whale off the NY coast, but such a sighting is not as rare as you may think.

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Aug. 28, 2014 – The Wildlife Conservation Society photographed a humpback whale feeding yesterday less than six miles from New York City. Waters off New York City and the greater New York Bight serve as a feeding ground, nursery, and migratory corridor for many species of marine life including whales, dolphins, sharks, fish, and sea birds. WCS’s New York Seascape program works to restore healthy populations of these species and protect New York marine waters, which are vital to...

New York (August 28, 2014)—A new study reports that an expansion of marine protected areas is needed to protect fish species that perform key ecological functions. According to investigators from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other organizations, previous efforts at protecting fish have focused on saving the largest numbers of species, often at the expense of those species that provide key and difficult-to-replace ecological functions. Many vital ecological functions of ocean ecology a...

Eighty years ago, WCS naturalist William Beebe and engineer Otis Barton plunged more than 3,000 feet into the ocean and observed never-before-seen marine life in its natural habitat.

Caleb McClennen, executive director for the Wildlife Conservation Society's Global Marine Program, explains the most important take away from Discovery Channel's Shark Week: sharks are an extraordinarily threatened species.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 5, 2014) – In a ceremony timed with the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Republic of Congo signed a Public-Private Partnership agreement on management of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park. This document officially establishes the Ndoki Foundation which will have management authority over the Park. John Robinson, WCS Executive Vice President for Conservation and Science issued the following statement:“On behalf of the Wildlife ...

Introducing the Australian humpback dolphin, a recently discovered new species of cetacean.

Study of dolphin group produces taxonomic clarity and a new member Distribution of Australian humpback dolphin coincides with the Wallace Line, a zoological barrier first proposed by the co-conceiver of evolution by natural selection New York (August 1, 2014)—Scientists examining a taxonomically confused group of marine mammals have officially named a species new to science: the Australian humpback dolphin, Sousa sahulensis, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society and Clymene Enterprises....

The stamp, which expired at the end of 2013, has raised more than $2.5 million for conservation since 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2014) -- The following statement was issued by John Calvelli, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Executive Vice President of Public Affairs following the Senate’s passage of the Multinational Species Conservation Funds (MSCF) Semipostal Stamp Reauthorization Act:“By passing this bill, U.S. Senators took action to engage the American people in the fight to save ...

With technical assistance from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Belize Fisheries Department initiated a new monitoring program using unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e. conservation drones) to curtail unsustainable levels of illegal fishing.