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http://www.marinemammalscience.org/smmtampa/Ohman_Kristin_11-8.pdfFrom Humpback whales occur annually between July and October off Zanzibar and may represent a previously undescribed breeding population in East Africa(1) . We conducted research on humpback whale population biology, ecology and threats to facilitate future development of community based sustainable whale watching. Humpback whales are regularly entangled in fishing gear (drift-and bottom set gillnets and trap lines) off Zanzibar and throughout the East African region(2) . Some whales manage to free themselves of the fishing gear, others swim away with the gear wrapped around their heads and tail flukes, making survival difficult, and some die from the entanglements. METHODS Photo-id data were collected during boat surveys (Figure 1) along with sound recordings, biopsies and behavioural data. To address the whale – fisheries interactions we arranged workshops with involved stakeholders, introduced weak-links as a potential mitigation measure to prevent entanglements and equipped and trained local teams how to disentangle whales trapped in fishing gear. A network of artisanal fishermen facilitates the research by calling in sightings of whales and entangled whales to the research vessel while at sea. field work conducted between 2006 and 2010 a catalogue of 372 identified whales has been compiled. Few whales have been resighted within years, and only one whale has been resighted between years. 191 whales were identified during 2011 and will be matched to the existing catalogue. A peak in abundance was detected during late July – mid August (Figure 2). Newborn calves (Figure 3), competitive pods (Figure 4) and singing males were observed in the area