The 25^th Annual Conference of the European Cetacean Society took place in Cadiz, Spain, on March 21-23, 2011. The conference featured presenters from different European countries, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Russia, who focused on the results of the latest research into the behaviour and conservation of marine mammals, on environmental protection and international cooperation.

A large Russian delegation was comprised primarily of young specialists from Moscow and the Far East, in particular Kamchatka. The White Whale Programme was represented at the conference by Dmitry Glazov, Chief Engineer of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, and his colleague from the same institute, Doctor of Biology Olga Shpak. They presented an oral report on testing a paramotor for use in investigating the abundance and distribution patterns and photo-identifying pods of beluga whales in the western part of the Sea of Okhotsk. The researchers also held three poster sessions: on the tentative results of beluga photo-identification in Western Kamchatka; populations, behaviour, and sex/age structure of beluga whales; and the abundance and distribution patterns of beluga whales in Russia’s White Sea as of March 2008 and March 2010.

Many participants in the conference displayed interest in the research and methods used in Russia. Russian scientists made new contacts with foreign colleagues and discussed the possibility of cooperation.