A humpback whale shows its fluke. (Photo by Ellen Chenoweth, NOAA Fisheries permit #14122).
Humpback whales may be coming off the endangered species list soon: federal officials are expected to announce a decision within the next few weeks.
Along with virtually all the great whales, humpbacks were hunted to near-extinction by the mid-20th century. They were one of the first species protected under the Endangered Species Act when it passed in 1973.
Forty years later, their numbers have grown, and the State of Alaska has petitioned the federal government to declare victory, and take at least some of the Pacific’s humpbacks off the list.
In this series, KCAW reporter Rachel Waldholz and University of Alaska Fairbanks PhD student Ellen Chenoweth delve into the history and science behind humpback numbers and the Endangered Species Act, and ask: to de-list or not to de-list?
President Nixon delivers his State of the Union speech on January 22, 1970. (Screenshot courtesy of the UCSB American Presidency Project)
Part 1: The origins of the Endangered Species Act
How some of America’s most enduring environmental laws came out of the office of a president who didn’t consider himself much of an environmentalist. Plus, whaling as a matter of national security and why, without whales, there might not even be an endangered species list.
Part 2: Counting humpbacks, fluke by fluke
How do you count all the whales in the sea? Fingerprint them. In this episode, we ask, how many humpbacks are out there, anyway?
A page from a humpback whale fluke matching catalog. (Photos by Jan Straley, NOAA Fisheries permit #14122)
Part 3: The secret history of Soviet whaling
Data hidden in a potato cellar, an archive in eastern Russia: how researchers are piecing together the history of illegal Soviet whaling in the North Pacific.
Part 4: To de-list or not to de-list?
In our final episode we examine the arguments for and against taking humpbacks off the endangered species list, and ask, what’s at stake for the whales, and for us?
