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The 1930s marked the beginning of international cooperation to develop regulations and protocols to protect whale populations. The first was the International Agreement for the Regulation of Whaling adopted in the late 1930s to protect baleen whales. This agreement was succeeded by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) in 1946 ratified under the auspices of the newly formed International Whaling Commission.
Though protected under ICRW regulations, eastern Pacific gray whales continued to be hunted for their commercial value into the 1980s. Also, the indigenous American Makah and Inuit tribes of Washington State and Alaska, respectively, have taken a small number of grays under special treaties with the US government but environmental groups have pressured the government to force the end of the practice.
The grays were protected under US law beginning in 1970s with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Evidence of population decline led to the eastern Pacific grays being listed as a threatened species under the ESA. In 1986, the IWC approved a moratorium on commercial whaling, and in 1994, as a result of these protections, grays were removed from the ESA threatened species list.
Like the US, Mexico has been a leader in gray whale conservation. It was the first signatory of the IARW. In 1946, Mexico enacted legislation to prohibit the harvesting of grays off its coast, and in 1971 Mexico declared the Baja lagoons a wildlife sanctuary. Today, the lagoons and contiguous lands around them form the Mexican Biosphere Reserve. In 1993, the United Nations declared the reserve a World Natural Heritage Site.
The ebb and flow of the tides through the narrow entry channels of the lagoons, and the Baja’s unusually dry climate, create an enormous amount of sea-water evaporation resulting in high levels of salt accumulation. In the 1950s, long before the lagoons were given sanctuary status, the Mitsubishi Corporation was permitted to build a salt manufacturing facility astride the Scammon lagoon. In the 1990s, the Japanese company wanted to expand the operation to the San Ignacio lagoon and lobbied feverishly for a salt works there, repeatedly claiming the project would have no ill effects on the environment. The running dispute which sparked heated protests by environmentalist groups, culminated in 2000 when then Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo vetoed the plan. At present (2009), the company says it has no plans to try to get the decision overturned.
While these Whales have survived ice ages and other extreme natural threats, they are unable to defend themselves from human activity and intense industrialization along their migration route. Also, climate change could be having a devastating effect on their feeding grounds.
Global warming, say environmental and whale-protection groups, is becoming a serious issue for gray whales. The melting of the Arctic ice cap and the rise of water temperature has caused a dip in the production of the food chain in the polar region. As marine mammal acoustic engineer Sheyna Wisdom explains, amphipods and the microorganisms on which they feed live in very cold water, and if warming continues, the reduction in biomass may become critical to the grays and other whales that feed in the region. Many whales are starving as a result and an estimated 10% are emaciated.
Whale strandings are a common occurrence around the world, and a suspected cause is the US Navy sonar program designed to detect enemy submarines. High-frequency sonar is like having a boom-box next to your ear playing at high volume.
Environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC), are continuing to seek solutions to this problem after a major court defeat to shut the program down off the California coast.
On Nov. 12, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Navy and against environmentalists who argued that military sonar frequencies kill whales. "The balance of equities and the public interest ... tip strongly in favor of the Navy," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. "The Navy’s need to conduct realistic training with active sonar to respond to the threat posed by enemy submarines plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs."
Dead whales found around sonar testing show internal bleeding around the brain and ears, evidence, environmental groups suggest, of cause and effect.
| Pre-Whaling & Current World Populations of Selected Whales Species* |
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|---|---|---|
| Species | Pre-Whaling | Current |
| Blue Whale | 228,000 | 14,000 |
| Humpback | 115,000 | 10,000 |
| Sei | 256,000 | 54,000 |
| Fin | 548,000 | 120,000 |
| Gray | 20,000 | 23,000 |
Japan, Russia, Iceland and Norway are the world's leading whaling countries. They continue to hunt whales commercially despite strong opposition from conservation groups. The worldwide ban on commercial whaling permits a limited number of kills for "scientific" purposes, but conservationists claim whale-hunting nations abuse this privilege. These countries claim whale hunting is a cultural right. Japan has killed thousands of blue whales in the Antarctic and continues to hunt other species in the western Pacific. In 2006, Norway's annual whaling quota increased 30% and the country kills over 1,000 minke whales a year. The gray whale figures in the above table reflect the eastern Pacific stock. Western Pacific grays are nearly extinct.
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