We don’t know for sure which one is smarter, because not everyone agrees on what “intelligence” means. Both have their own special behaviours and skills and we can’t say who is more intelligent.
Protecting forests and wetlands, which absorb and store carbon, is one way to slow climate change. Scientists are proposing similar treatment for marine animals that help store carbon in the oceans.
A pod of narwhals (Monodon monoceros) in central Baffin Bay. Narwhals are the most vulnerable animals to increased ship traffic in the Arctic Ocean.
Kristin Laidre/University of Washington
Climate change is shrinking Arctic sea ice and opening the region to ship traffic. Whales, seals and other marine mammals could be at risk unless nations adopt rules to protect them.
Bottlenose dolphins off the coast of New Jersey.
Artie Kopelman
How can marine preserves best protect sea creatures that move in and out of them? Two ocean scientists describe new thinking about designing marine protected areas.
Bottlenose dolphins, are very coastal and subsist on small fish connected to reefs and smaller bays.
Shutterstock
Gary Griggs, University of California, Santa Cruz and Charles Lester, University of California, Santa Cruz
For 50 years California has used laws and policies to manage development along its 1,100-mile coastline and preserve public access to the shore. Climate change will make that task harder.
Dolphins contribute important knowledge about ocean health.
Shutterstock
Marine mammals are often referred to as sentinels of the ocean and research on whales and dolphins in particular contributes important knowledge about the health of our seas.
Humpback whales are deterred from their migration routes by the noise of air guns used to survey the ocean floor for oil and gas deposits, a new study has found.
Hey, what about us? Whale shark (spotted) and manta ray, a close shark relative.
Justin Henry
As the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Wild unleash a week of dueling shark programs, a biologist advises viewers to take what they see with a large grain of sea salt.
A baleen whale feeding in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand.
Dr Krista Hupman
There are plenty of mammals that have adapted to life in water, some more than others. That meant they also had to adapt the way they feed.
State conservation officials from Florida and Georgia work in 2014 to remove a heavy length of fishing rope from a right whale’s mouth.
FL Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission/Flickr
Matt Burgess, University of California, Santa Barbara and Rob Williams, University of St Andrews
A new US seafood import rule requires supplier countries to control accidental bycatch of whales, seals and other marine mammals – showing that global trade and conservation can reinforce each other.
Ships in Australian waters are getting bigger and more numerous all the time. We need a plan to help them avoid crashing into whales and other large sea creatures.
Indian Ocean humpback dolphins, which live close to the shore, need protection. The total population is estimated to be just 10,000, with fewer than 1,000 of them off the coast of South Africa.