21 May 2008

Who We Are

The American Cetacean Society protects whales, dolphins, porpoises, and their habitats through public education, research grants, and conservation actions.

Founded in 1967, the American Cetacean Society (ACS) is the oldest whale conservation group in the world. ACS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with an office in San Pedro, California and chapters in Los Angeles, Orange County, Puget Sound (Seattle), Monterey, San Francisco, and the Channel Islands (Santa Barbara / Ventura). Our members live throughout the United States and in more than 20 countries.

We take our responsibility as participants in the web of life seriously, and volunteer our time and resources to not just protect whales, dolphins and porpoises, but to promote the health of the oceans and ultimately our planet as well.

The American Cetacean Society has a long history of sending representatives to the International Whaling Commission to observe, lobby for protection on the basis of scientific research, and to provide first hand reports on the IWC's activities to our membership. Past representatives to IWC meetings have included Barbara Britten, Kate O'Connell, Katy Penland, Bonnie Gretz, Kate Sardi, and Jonathon Stern.

In 2008, Kate Sardi will represent ACS at the IWC meeting in Chile. Kate Sardi is an ACS member-at-large and has been the national board's research chair since 2001. She is a senior biologist in the Rescue and Rehabilitation Department at the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA. Prior to starting at the Aquarium, she was the Assistant Director of the Whale Center of New England in Gloucester, MA. She has a B.S. in marine and freshwater biology from the University of New Hampshire and a Master's degree in marine biology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

For more on ACS and ACS's past involvement with the IWC, see