Gray Whale Dropped From Endangered List

In a rare success story for declining wildlife, the federal government announced Wednesday that the once imperiled California gray whale has “fully recovered” and will be removed from the endangered species list.

The action, proposed a year ago, makes the whale the first marine mammal to be removed from the list. Only one other U.S. species, the American alligator, has been deemed to have recovered fully under the Endangered Species Act.

“This is impressive,” said Lee Weddig, executive vice president of the National Fisheries Institute, a group that represents seafood companies and sought to have the whale delisted. “This is a great day for anyone concerned about the system working because it shows that the Endangered Species Act can move in both directions.”

The recovery of the whale was attributed in part to the Mexican government’s protection of the animals’ calving and winter grounds off Baja California.

Mexico has put limits on whale watching in Baja to minimize disturbance to the animals while they bear their young and has backed away from a proposal to drill for oil and gas in calving lagoons.

The gray whale was hunted nearly to extinction several decades ago. It has made a gradual recovery since a ban on hunting it was imposed in 1946, but still merited protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1970. The act made it illegal to injure or harass the animals or significantly disturb their habitat.

Some fishermen have been prosecuted under the Endangered Species Act for injuring or killing gray whales in nets. But fishing groups said they petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to remove the whale to set a precedent for the delisting of other marine creatures.

Because the animals still will be protected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Act, which prohibits killing them, fishermen say the whales’ removal from the endangered list will not affect fishing practices.

Environmental groups were divided over whether the whale should be removed from the list.

“We are very concerned about offshore oil drilling and its effects upon the whale, and whether we now will be able to really monitor and handle that situation,” said William Snape, staff attorney for Defenders of Wildlife.

Because of the whale’s protection under the Endangered Species Act, federal oil leases could not be issued in places frequented by the animals until U.S. wildlife officials first ensured that the whales would not be injured and their habitat would not be disturbed.

Michael Bean, senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said environmental reviews required by other federal laws still will protect the animals from the dangers posed by oil exploration.

“I think it’s unlikely that anything harmful to its welfare will happen as a result of it being taken off the endangered list,” Bean said.

The whale’s removal may help rebut criticism that the Endangered Species Act “is a one-way street--that species only go on the list and never come off,” he said.

The act is up for reauthorization by Congress, and opponents have mounted a strong campaign against it. Among their complaints is that the act has not really helped wildlife and has cost jobs and hurt industry profits.

Only four species have been removed from the endangered list because of recovery. Three were birds on a distant island in the Pacific and the fourth was a plant that was delisted primarily because more of its species were discovered.

The American alligator, which rebounded because of a ban on hunting, is now considered revived and remains on the list only because of its similarity to the endangered crocodile. Wildlife authorities fear products made from crocodiles might be illegally sold as alligator.

Other species that are improving include the brown pelican, the peregrine falcon and the American bald eagle.

The gray whale migrates south from the Bering Sea along the North American coast to the west coast of Baja California. The animals are now passing the coast of Southern California, where whale-watching tours are a lucrative business.

A review by the National Marine Fisheries Service last year found that the whales are growing by 3% in population each year.

The whale population is now believed to be greater than it was when hunting began in 1846, when there were an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 of the animals, federal officials said.

In announcing that it was stripping the whale of its endangered status, the fisheries service also proposed the listing of the Gulf of Maine harbor porpoise as a threatened species, a move that could curtail fishing there.

“It would certainly have a big impact on the fishing practices in the area,” said Weddig of the fisheries institute. “It may be that certain types of fishing gear could be prohibited.”

Return of a Species

Scientists began studying whale populations in the 19th Century, estimating the total population by counting the number hunted and guessing at the percentage the dead whales represented. Later, scientists counted whales as they swam past along migratory routes. The population has climbed back dramatically as measures to discourage whaling have been imposed. 1846: Start of commercial whaling 1946: Whaling banned 1970: Protected under Endangered Species Act Source: National Marine Fisheries Service