We apologise for the delay in opening the ECS site up for abstracts for the 26th European Cetacean Society Conference. This has been caused by technical problems involved in transferring the ECS website to the University of Leige. We are still aiming for an abstract deadline of 11 November 2011. If the ECS site is still not accepting abstracts by the end of October we will establish a submission facility on www.iwdg.ie/ecs