Truemors
It's a good news ...humpback whales have been taken off the danger list. The humpback is safe from the threat of extinction which was feared by conservationists forty years ago. The latest count stands at 40,000 mature individuals. Not only humpback whales, other whales such blue whale and the sei and southern right whales are also growing in number after similar scares.
The populations of several smaller species of whales and other cetaceans are still falling, however, and it is feared that some may be close to disappearing, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature .
The vaquita, Phocoena sinus, a porpoise found in the Gulf of California, Mexico, is now thought to be down to the last 150 individuals and has been named by the union as the cetacean mostly likely to become extinct next.
The resurgence of the humpback, Megaptera novaeangliae, has nevertheless heartened conservationists. Whalers, especially the Soviet Union’s Antarctic whaling fleet, had caused devastation to the humpback population until hunting was halted in the Sixties.
The humpback had been described by the union as vulnerable to extinction, but it has now been reclassified as being of “least concern” – the lowest rating. Southern right whales, Eubalaena australis, have also been taken off the critical list after their population doubled from 7,500 in 1995. They, too, get a “least concern” rating in the union’s latest update of its Red List of threatened animals.
Comments (0)