Threats to whales around the world are escalating: the use of deadly military sonar spreads through the oceans, industrialization despoils critical whale habitat, and whales are still dying through commercial whaling.

In Alaska's Cook Inlet, the beluga whale population has plummeted to fewer than 400 animals as pollution increases. And ear-splitting military sonar is needlessly harming populations of whales as the U.S. Navy continues to refuse to use common-sense safeguards during training exercises.

NRDC is fighting on all fronts to protect imperiled whales throughout the world's oceans. In 2008, under pressure from NRDC and other conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service placed Cook Inlet belugas on the endangered species list. However, the state of Alaska -- in a move to protect oil and gas interests -- intends to challenge this decision. NRDC will go to court to protect Alaska's most endangered whales.

NRDC is also waging a campaign of courtroom action, administrative advocacy and public pressure to compel the Navy to restrict its use of deadly sonar, which has been linked to hundreds of whale strandings and deaths. NRDC has made enormous progress over the past decade in compelling the military to study the impacts of sonar and put precautions in place.

On the international front, NRDC is working to stop the inhumane killing of whales for profit. Earlier this year, the International Whaling Commission released a proposal that would legalize commercial whaling for the first time in a generation, but then delayed action on the deal after a worldwide outcry, which included letters of protest from more than 100,000 BioGems Defenders. (You can read NRDC Executive Director Peter Lehner's announcement about the IWC decision here.) If the IWC revisits this deal next year, NRDC will once again mobilize against it and urge our own government to seek instead to end commercial whaling once and for all.