Whales Restored : The Grays: Less Danger, New Dispute

Among the swells of the Pacific, sea-faring Americans once hunted the California gray whale for its blubber. The iron men in wooden ships did their job well: When the last of them returned to port after the turn of the century, only about 2,500 gray whales remained alive.

But 38 years after the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling banned its slaughter, the gray whale, a species that seemed destined for extinction, has flourished. Recent surveys estimate that there are 15,000 to 20,000 of the giant mammals roaming the waters between Alaska and Baja California.

A Lesser Category

The recovery is considered so remarkable that federal authorities this month plan to recommend that the gentle grays be downgraded from the government’s list of endangered species. Instead, they would be declared “threatened”--a category that carries fewer government protections against interference by man.

Government officials insist that the change will do no harm to the whales. “We’ve removed animals from the endangered list because they became extinct, but we’ve never had a marine mammal removed because it recovered sufficiently,” said James H. Lecky, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Los Angeles. “This is probably cause for celebration.”

Not all conservationists are cheering. Some fear that without endangered status, the gray whale could again eventually fall victim to the harpoon, while its habitat could be stretched even more thin by oil drillers, miners and other off-shore industries.

Any decision to downgrade the gray could similarly threaten the seven other types of great whales currently on the endangered list, critics contend.

‘Tremendous Feat’

“We certainly feel that the comeback of the gray whale is a tremendous feat of conservation,” said Alan Reichman, a spokesman for Greenpeace, an environmental group based in Seattle. “But we are concerned that ‘delisting’ could reduce the resolve of agencies of the U.S. government to protect gray whales and the habitat they need for survival. . . . It could easily be detrimental to the well-being of the species.”

The fisheries service in September plans to publish notices in the Federal Register as the first step in downgrading the gray whale’s endangered designation. Public hearings are expected and a final decision probably will come in mid-1986.

Some activists already have mobilized. One, Mendocino sculptor Byrd Baker, drove to 42 states this summer, tacking up petition forms in each town he visited. “I am totally against the removal of the California whales from the endangered species list,” the forms state.

Response to his petition, Byrd reports, has been “overwhelming. People are swelling up with indignation.” He said he has collected 6,200 signatures which he plans to deliver to select members of Congress.

Prof. Peter Bryant, a UC Irvine developmental biologist who has studied gray whales in Mexico, said he believes that their downgrading by the U.S. government might “send a message” to active whaling nations, particularly Japan, that the gray is once again fair game.

Federal wildlife officials concede that “threatened” status generally is subject to greater interpretation than “endangered.” That means that in specific cases, particularly involving scientific research, officials are more likely to consider granting access to animals once deemed endangered.

Protection Would Remain

However, even if the gray whale were downgraded to “threatened,” it still would be shielded from possible exploitation by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which precludes the commercial use of any marine mammal, officials say.

That aside, gray whales continue to be hunted by man. The fisheries service allows the annual taking of about five gray whales, which are eaten by Alaskan native hunters. Another 150 or more gray whales are killed each year by the Soviet government, ostensibly to feed Siberian aborigines, although protectionists charge that many of the whales are used as mink food.

The take, by comparison, is minimal to the number of gray whales killed by American whalers in the mid-to-late 1800s.

Naturalists estimate that there were 30,000 California gray whales in the eastern north Pacific before 1846, the peak year for American whaling. The business proved profitable for decades: whale blubber was melted down for lamp oil and whale flesh was ground up for dog food. Whalebone, which hangs in horny, elastic sheets from the jaws of baleen whales like the gray, was carved into buggy whips, corset stays and combs.

Few Survivors

Records show that from 1846 to 1874, about 8,100 gray whales were taken. No one knows for sure how many were killed after that, but in 1930, two research scientists, Alfred Brazler Howell and L. M. Huey, published a text in which they said it was “doubtful whether more than a few dozen individuals survive.”

An international ban on the commercial hunting of gray whales was imposed in 1947.

Of the seven other whales on the endangered species list--the blue, bowhead, finback, humpback, right, Sei and sperm--none can compare to the recovery rate shown by the gray, according to Pat Montanio, a biologist in the fisheries service’s Office of Protected Species in Washington. None of the other whales is expected to be downgraded from endangered to threatened any time soon, Montanio said.

The gray whale’s recovery rate can be attributed to the very reason that led to it being slaughtered in wholesale numbers, scientists believe.

Stay Close to Shore

“They migrate close to the shoreline, which made them more accessible to hunters, but it also makes them easier to protect” by U.S. laws, said Sheridan Stone, a fisheries service biologist. “With their visible presence, it was also readily recognized that they were depleted, so perhaps protective laws went into effect sooner than they did for other whales.”

Like their ancestors, the gray whales of today leave their summer feeding grounds in December in the Bering Sea to mate and give birth in the lagoons of Baja, returning to northern waters in early spring.

The gray whales’ annual migration takes them close to the California coast, spawning what has become a $35 million-a-year whale-watching industry. It is estimated that more than 200 California-based tour boats do steady business each whale-watching season, which traditionally runs from December to April.

The whales, their dark skin mottled by scarred, gray patches formed by barnacles, travel alone or in small families, called pods. Mature males grow as long as 50 feet and can weigh 45 tons.

Targeted by Cameras

“To shoot a whale with a camera is much more profitable than it ever was shooting it with a harpoon,” observed John Olguin, co-director of the Cabrillo Marine Museum in San Pedro, which operates its own whale-watching program in conjunction with the San Pedro-based American Cetacean Society.

Directors of the cetacean society, a 2,000-member organization devoted to educating the public about whales, met this week and discussed, among other issues, the proposed revision of the gray whale’s status.

Society President Joanne Smalley said she views the proposal skeptically.

“It appears that the population of grays off our coast is stable and that the range is well-suited to this number of grays,” Smalley said. “But I personally think that if you downgrade any whale, it’s risky. Even though the stock is very healthy at this point, that can quickly change under environmental pressure.”