Whale Population Devastated by Warming Oceans, Scientists Say
Geoffrey Lean and Robert Mendick The Independent (London) August
1, 2001  Global warming has caused an unexpected collapse in the
numbers of the world's most hunted whale, scientists believe.
They think that a sharp contraction in sea ice in the Antarctic
is the likeliest explanation behind new findings, which suggest
that the number of minke whales in the surrounding seas has
fallen by half in less than a decade.  The findings—which were
the talk of the annual meeting in London last week of the
International Whaling Commission (IWC), the body that regulates
whaling—has greatly strengthened the arguments of
conservationists who are resisting moves to lift a 15-year-old
official ban on the hunt.  It also further underlines the
importance of last week's agreement in Bonn on how to implement
the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to combat climate
change.  Commercial whaling has been banned officially since
1986, but Japan and Norway each cont