Researchers speculate that 2 to 8 new cetacean species and almost 10 marine reptile species (like sea snakes) remain to be discovered.
The Institute for Cetacean Research harvests whales within the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, fifty million square kilometres designated a protected area by the I.
No one has seen any that far north in January before, said Christian Ramp, a researcher with the Quebec-based Mingan Island Cetacean Study.
The vaquita, which is also the world's smallest cetacean, is emblematic of the plight of other dolphins and porpoises around the world, say campaigners.
The site is globally important for threatened seabirds and migratory birds, a number of salmonid species, and for marine mammals including Steller's sea lion and some cetacean species.
World whale experts are currently gathered in Portugal for the European Cetacean Society conference, and Mr Scott said the BDMLR had been able to pass valuable information on to them.
Cetacean brains are also, scaled appropriately for body size, almost as big as those of humans and significantly bigger than those of great apes, which are usually thought of as humanity's closest intellectual cousins.
Right whales have one of the smallest brain-to-body-size ratios of any cetacean, the longest penis in the animal kingdom (averaging more than seven feet or 2.3m) and testes with a combined weight of one tonne.
Last month, the Japanese research foundation Institute of Cetacean Research and the Japanese firm Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd. secured a U.S. District Court injunction against Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, according to the institute's website.
Last week, after a series of particularly dangerous confrontations, the group claimed to have brought about a suspension of whaling - an assertion rejected by the Japanese fisheries ministry and also its Institute of Cetacean Research, which organises the hunt.
"As a United States citizen, I will respect and comply with the ruling of the United States 9th District Court and will not violate the temporary injunction granted to the Institute for Cetacean Research, " Watson said in a statement Tuesday.
Chris Butler-Stroud, of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, in Britain, and Kari Koski of the Whale Museum in San Juan Island, Washington state, then charted some of the hesitant steps already being taken in the direction of establishing cetacean rights.
The Japanese fleet is run by the government-subsidized Institute for Cetacean Research, in Tokyo, but the institute has produced virtually no research of any regard, and all the whales that are purported to be under study are also butchered for the purpose of selling whale meat to the Japanese public.
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