The humpback whale, nearly hunted into history four decades ago, is now on the “road to recovery” and is no longer considered at high risk of extinction, an environmental group said yesterday.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — the producer each year of a Red List of threatened species — also upgraded the status of the southern “right” whale from vulnerable. The right whale gets its name from whalers who deemed it a particularly good species to hunt, because it floats after being killed.
“Humpbacks and southern right whales are making a comeback in much of their range mainly because they have been protected from commercial hunting,” said Randall Reeves, an expert on marine mammals for the conservation organization.
PHOTO: EPA
“This is a great conservation success and clearly shows what needs to be done to ensure these ocean giants survive,” he said in a statement.
Bill Perrin, another expert at IUCN, said the humpback whale population dropped to the “low thousands” when it was finally banned from commercial hunts in 1966. Its numbers have since risen to at least 60,000, Perrin said, adding that the population is growing at a healthy rate of 5 percent each year in the North Pacific.
While the right whales that hug the southern coasts of Argentina, South Africa and Australia are also recuperating, their cousins in the north are struggling.
There may be only 300 North Atlantic right whales along the US Eastern Seaboard, Perrin said, adding that while hunting them is illegal, many continue to be wounded or killed in collisions with ships or entanglements with fishing gear.
The IUCN said a number of other large sea animals were moving closer to extinction.
Overall, nearly a quarter of all such species are threatened and over a 10th are listed as endangered or critically endangered, representing the greatest threat of extinction.
The Irrawaddy dolphin of southeast Asia, the finless porpoise that swims from the Persian Gulf to the coast of north Japan and South America’s franciscana dolphin are all considered vulnerable — largely because they are often a bycatch in fisheries.
In Mexico’s Gulf of California, the vaquita porpoise will probably be the next animal of this type to become extinct. Already critically endangered, about 15 percent of those remaining are killed each year in gill nets, the organization said. It estimated that only 150 are left in the wild.
Noting the decline in hunts of whales and other sea mammals over the last few decades, the IUCN said accidental killing in fishing gear was now the “main threat” to these species.
Those being particularly hard hit also include the Black Sea harbor porpoise and the western gray whale.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS