Chile passes blanket ban on whale hunting

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Chile is making its entire Pacific Ocean territorial waters a whale sanctuary, according to The Times’ World Briefing this morning.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill submitted by President Michelle Bachelet that bans whale hunting off Chile’s 3,400-mile coast. Chile has not hunted whales since the 1970s. But Bachelet says the nation wants to send a clear sign of its will to protect whales in its waters.

The Times’ Patrick J. McDonell reported in April, with video below, on whales that were coming back to Chile’s southern waters where they were once close to extinction.