Gray Whale May Lose Endangered Status

The gray whale may soon be leaving the ranks of seven other species of whales on the federal endangered species list, government officials said Thursday.

Howard Braham, director of the U.S. National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, said recent census samples of the gray whale suggest that its population has recovered from the commercial whaling days of the 19th Century, when it was placed on the endangered species list. The species now numbers between 16,000 and 18,000, Braham wrote in a government report.

“We put it at or above the top of where it was before commercial whaling,” Braham said. “It should no longer be covered” under the endangered species list and will be downgraded to a “threatened” species, he said.

Braham said the threatened species classification will provide the same protection to gray whales as the endangered species category. The federal government’s final decision to downgrade the gray whale’s status is expected within a few weeks, he said.

James Lecky, marine biologist for the Southwest Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla, also said the mammal is no longer threatened by extinction. He said the gray whale had dwindled to “a couple of thousand” in 1910 but has since recovered.

Lecky said that as a threatened species, the whale will still be protected from hunters.

Gray whales migrate from Alaska to Baja California and back annually, passing off the coast of San Diego.

Other whales on the endangered species list are the blue, Sei, fin, humpback, sperm, right and bowhead.