honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, September 28, 2009

Humpbacks may no longer be endangered


By Audrey McAvoy
Associated Press

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Humpback whales frolic off Waikiki. The North Pacific humpback population has increased steadily for decades.

Advertiser library photo

spacer spacer

The federal government is considering taking the humpback whale off the endangered species list in response to data showing the population of the marine mammal has been steadily growing in recent decades.

Humpbacks were nearly hunted to extinction for their oil and meat by whaling ships well through the middle of the 20th century. But the species has been bouncing back since an international ban on their commercial harvest in 1966.

The government is required by law to review the endangered species status of an animal or plant if it receives "significant new information." The National Marine Fisheries Service received results last year from an extensive study showing that the North Pacific humpback population has been growing 4 to 7 percent a year in recent decades.

Public comment is being accepted until Oct. 13 on the upcoming review, which is expected to take less than a year.

A panel of scientists will then study the data and produce a scientific report on their analysis in late spring or early summer. Some environmental groups are already opposing the possibility of a delisting.

"Ocean conditions are changing so rapidly right now that it would probably be hasty to delist the humpbacks," said Miyoko Sakashita, the ocean programs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said the U.S. should remove humpbacks from the list if populations have sufficiently recovered.

He said conservationists must "be prepared and willing to embrace success" if they're to maintain what he called a "meaningful" endangered species program.