Recovery Dawns for Humpbacks and Southern Right Whales

"Humpbacks and southern right whales are making a comeback in much of their range mainly because they have been protected from commercial hunting," says cetacean scientist Randall Reeves, who led the IUCN Red List assessment. Reeves chairs the Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

"This is a great conservation success and clearly shows what needs to be done to ensure these ocean giants survive," he said.

A humpback whale and Pacific Ocean sunset off the coast of Ecuador (Photo by Laura Travels)

The conservation status of all cetacean species was assessed for the 2008 IUCN Cetacean Red List, which is a joint product of IUCN and the Global Mammal Assessment.

The assessments were conducted by scientists from the Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

After the data was in, the scientists changed the status of nearly one-third of cetaceans, with the majority of those changed to a category of greater risk.

Still, there is good news. The humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, is recovering after the commercial hunting of the last century. In 2007, it was classed as Vulnerable to extinction, but the whale specialists now have reclassified the humpback as a species of Least Concern, meaning it is at low risk of extinction, although two subpopulations are listed as Endangered.

But two subpopulations, the Arabian and Oceania humpback whales, are still classified as Endangered.

The southern right whale, Eubalaena australis, also has been moved to the Least Concern category. Around 7,500 southern right whales are estimated to swim throughout the southern part of the Southern Hemisphere.

This is a huge win for humpback whales and all those who have worked for more than four decades to protect them," said Patrick Ramage, Global Whale Program Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"Ending commercial whaling was one of the most important conservation victories of the 20th century. Today, our planet's great whales face more threats than ever, including renewed whaling by Japan, Iceland and Norway," said Ramage. "It is our generation's turn to keep these magnificent creatures off the target list forever."

Not all large whales are safer this year. The world's largest animal - the blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, remains listed as Endangered, pending more evidence of recovery.

The fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus; and sei whale, Balaenoptera borealis, also are still classed as Endangered.

A southern right whale approaches a whale watching boat off Argentina's Patagonia coast. (Photo by Michael Catanzariti)

But while some large whales are doing better, most small coastal and freshwater cetaceans are moving closer to the brink, the IUCN warns.

Small coastal cetaceans such as the Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris; the finless porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides; and the South American franciscana, Pontoporia blainvillei, are now all listed as Vulnerable, meaning they are threatened with extinction.

Overall, nearly a quarter of cetacean species are considered to be at risk, and of those, nine species are listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, the highest categories of threat.

"Too many of these small coastal cetaceans end up as bycatch in fisheries," says Reeves. "This remains the main threat to them and it is only going to get worse,"

The vaquita, Phocoena sinus, a porpoise in the Gulf of California, Mexico, will most likely be the next cetacean species to go extinct, the IUCN predicts. Already listed as Critically Endangered, an estimated 15 percent of its dwindling population is killed in gillnets every year, leaving only about 150 alive in the wild.

The Yangtze River dolphin or baiji, Lipotes vexillifer, was classified as Critically Endangered, Possibly Extinct on last year's IUCN Red List and it is feared that the vaquita will follow the same path.

"River dolphins are one of the most threatened cetacean categories, mainly because they are locked in competition with humans for dwindling freshwater resources," says Jean-Christophe Vié, deputy head of IUCN's Species Program.

With less whale hunting over the last few decades, since a moratorium on commercial whale was established by the International Whaling Commission in 1986, accidental killing in fishing gear has become the main threat to cetaceans.

Among the cetaceans most at risk from this threat, the Black Sea harbor porpoise, Phocoena phocoena relicta, was moved from Vulnerable to Endangered on this year's Red List.

The Endangered North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis, and the Critically Endangered western gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, also face entanglement.

A Critically Endangered vaquita was found entangled in old fishing gear in the Gulf of California. (Photo courtesy Government of Mexico)

"Disentanglement programs to release whales captured in fishing gear, already carried out in the United States, New Zealand and Australia, help some individuals survive," says Bill Perrin, chair of the IUCN Cetacean Red List Authority. "However, areas of critical habitat need to be closed to certain types of fishing, at least seasonally, to ensure the survival of some species."

Military sonar is another threat that particularly affects deep-diving beaked whales and other cetaceans like the melon-headed whale. The IUCN says mass strandings of these species have occurred more often in the last 30 years.

"Large parts of the oceans are now filled with human-generated noise, not only from military sonar but also from seismic surveys and shipping. This noise undoubtedly affects many cetaceans, in some cases leading to their death," says Jan Schipper of Conservation International, director of the IUCN Global Mammal Assessment program.

"It may not always kill whales and dolphins, but it affects their ability to communicate and it can drive them away, at least temporarily, from their feeding grounds," said Schipper.

Climate change, too, is starting to affect whales.

The distribution of many species is changing, with the potential for a cascade of effects such as exposure to new diseases, inter-species competition and changes in prey populations. The Antarctic great whales, for example, depend on krill for food. As water temperatures rise, krill populations may decline, leaving such whales short of food.

"To save whales for future generations, we need to work closely with the fishing industry, the military and offshore enterprises including shippers and oil developers," said IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre, and we need to fight climate change."

The IUCN Red List threat categories are:

• Extinct or Extinct in the Wild
• Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable: species threatened with global extinction
• Near Threatened: species close to the threatened thresholds or that would be threatened without ongoing specific conservation measures
• Least Concern: species evaluated with a low risk of extinction
• Data Deficient: no evaluation because of insufficient data

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