The Government of Bangladesh announced the declaration of the Nijhum Dwip Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the northern Bay of Bengal to safeguard critical spawning grounds for the country’s most valuable fish species and some of the world’s largest populations of endangered dolphins, porpoises, sharks, rays, and marine turtles.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Malaysia Program (WCS Malaysia) lauds the Sarawak Government for gazetting Luconia Shoals as a marine national park effective 18 October last year and formally published in the Sarawak Gazette on 17 January 2019. Located in the South China Sea over the Sunda Continental Shelf in the Malaysian Exclusive Economic Zone, Luconia Shoals is the largest marine national park in the country at over 1 million hectares.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) applauds Governor Cuomo and the New York State Senate and Assembly for their leadership in banning single-use plastic bags in this year’s budget. 

The Coney Island Polar Bear Club has announced donations totaling over $60,000 to local nonprofits in the Coney Island community, including a $20,000 donation for the New York Aquarium’s local marine conservation efforts.

A coalition of major public aquariums has announced that they are opposed to the federal government’s pending issuance of permits to allow repeated seismic blasting along the East Coast in search of offshore oil and gas. Marine scientists are concerned that the prolonged and extreme noise pollution introduced into already highly stressed ocean environments will disturb marine life from tiny plankton to commercially valuable fish stocks and even giant whales.

The WCS Myanmar Program released a video celebrating its 25th year of conservation.Watch the video here.

Working in collaboration with Myanmar’s Department of Fisheries (DoF), WCS has announced the creation of a new protected area for a population of critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) living in the Ayeyawady River of central Myanmar. The new 100-kilometer (62 mile) zone will serve as an extension to an existing protected area established in 2005 between the towns of Mingun and Kyauk Myaung which established in collaboration between DoF and WCS. Said Saw Htun, Dep...

An international study published today in the journal Current Biology discovered that only 13 percent of the ocean can still be classified as wilderness.

WCS Executive Vice President for Public Affairs John Calvelli issued the following statement concerning rescission of the U.S. National Ocean Policy:

NEW YORK (May 23, 2018) – The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) kicked off its Give a Sip campaign today to support a bill introduced by Councilman Rafael Espinal that will eliminate the use of most single-use plastic straws in New York City.