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Some big whales recovering since hunt ban - survey
Some large whale species such as the humpback, minke and southern right whale are recovering from a threat of extinction, helped by curbs on hunts since the 1980s, the world's largest conservation network said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:59 August 12, 2008
- Image Credit: Reuters
- The humpback whale, nearly hunted into history four decades ago, is now on the 'road to recovery'.
Oslo: Some large whale species such as the humpback, minke and southern right whale are recovering from a threat of extinction, helped by curbs on hunts since the 1980s, the world's largest conservation network said yesterday.
A review of cetaceans - grouping about 80 types of whales, dolphins and porpoises - showed many small species were still at risk. Entanglement in fishing gear was the main threat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said.
"For the large whales the picture looks guardedly optimistic," Randall Reeves, chair of the cetacean specialist group of the IUCN, said of the assessment of marine mammals for the IUCN's "Red List" of endangered species.
Good response
"The large whales, the commercially important ones, have for the most part responded well under protection," he said. The IUCN groups governments, scientists and conservationists.
The world imposed a moratorium on hunts of whales in 1986 after many were driven towards extinction by decades of commercial exploitation for meat, oil and whalebone. Minke whales are still harpooned by Japan, Norway and Iceland.
The humpback whale, which grows up to 50 feet and is found in all the world's oceans, was moved to "least concern" from "vulnerable" in the new Red List.
The southern right whale, found in the southern hemisphere, and the common minke whale, living in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, were shifted down to the "least concern" category from the "lower risk" grouping.
"In the case of the minke whale it's not that the stocks are more robust but there is more and better information," said Justin Cooke, a member of the IUCN cetacean specialist group.
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