Whale populations recovering, according to new report
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: NBC
One of the world's largest conservation groups issued a report saying a number of whale species are recovering from the threat of extinction.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature reviewed about 80 types of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Its report says whales such as the humpback, minke and southern right whale are recovering because of a ban on whale hunting.
The world imposed a moratorium on all hunts in 1986 after many species were driven towards extinction by decades of exploitation for meat, oil and whalebone. Japan, Norway and Iceland still hunt minke whales, arguing they are plentiful.
One Norwegian fishery minister said the report is flawed and not based on scientific analysis. He said there are 100,000 minke whales alone in the North Atlantic and the hunting ban should be lifted.
But Greenpeace said the ban should be continued. Frode Pleym, Greenpeace spokesman, "While some species of whales have started to recover, none of them are back to the levels they had before industrial whaling started. This report should not be an excuse to hunt these species back to an endangered level again. To us, clearly, commercial whaling is unsustainable. It doesn't make any sense in economic terms and it should stop."
