"whales"

For more than 500 million years, sea creatures have been getting bigger — much bigger as it turns out, according to a study by scientists who say that the evolutionary trend toward larger body size fits with a 19th-century principle known as Cope’s rule.

Three rarely seen whales beached on Alaska’s coast last year, and NOAA Fisheries is investigating whether human activity contributed to the strandings.

Wildlife officials in southwest Florida who are struggling to save dozens of beached pilot whales say there’s hope that at least some of the animals might escape after they spotted at least 20 of them swimming in deeper water.

Efforts to cut a humpback whale free of gill netting it has been dragging around Southeast Alaska for the last 12 days continue to fail.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will initiate an in-depth review into whether the North Pacific humpback still needs protection under the Endangered Species Act.

There’s a baby boom going on with Alaska’s humpback whales. Slow-but-steady population growth is good news for the species, as well as whale-watchers. But it could be bad news for boaters, hatcheries and the herring fleet.

Scientists studying Cook Inlet belugas have watched the dramatic decline of their numbers from 1,300 in the 1970s to only 300 now.