James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
Looks like we won't be needing a team of aging, time-traveling Starfleet officers to save the humpbacks after all. The IUCN has downlisted (I hate that word!) (Megaptera novaeangliae) from Vulnerable to Least Concern. Only took 25 years of keeping the whalers at bay to do it. But I'll take the good news when I can get it. (At right are animatronic members of the species.)
Of course, other member of Cetacea are still in trouble. The vaquita of the Gulf of California is on the way out . The baiji of China's Yangtze River is probably already gone. And while the southern right whales were also downlisted to least concern status, their northern cousins are stubbornly refusing to grow in numbers, stuck at fewer than 350, and remain at risk from the White House's refusal to approval shipping speed limits in the species' Atlantic coast range.
Given the inability of whalers to stick to approved species, there's still no justification for resumption of whaling.
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I am, the hell, happy to hear this, Admiral.
Do you know if anyone is assembling a bank of genetic samples of endangered species?
Posted by: Jason Failes | August 12, 2008 1:19 PM