US to review endangered status of humpback whales

The population of humpback whales has been growing steadily, prompting a review of its status in the US – but not everyone wants it delisted
A humpback whale breaches off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Photograph:Mary Schwalm/Reuters
Giant leaps … humpback populations in the north Pacific have been growing 4-7% a year in recent decades. Photograph: Mary Schwalm/Reuters




The US government is required by law to review the endangered species status of an animal or plant if it receives "significant new information". The National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, received results last year from an extensive study showing that the north Pacific humpback population has been growing 4-7% a year in recent decades.

Public comment is being accepted until 13 October on the upcoming review, which is expected to take less than a year. It is the first review for humpbacks since 1999.

A panel of scientists will then study the data and report on their analysis in late spring or early summer. It is unclear what the decision on delisting the humpback will be.

Some environmental groups are already opposing the possibility of a delisting.



Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said the US should remove humpbacks from the list if populations have sufficiently recovered.


"The whole process, the credibility of it, depends on telling people that things are really bad when they're really bad and telling people that they aren't so bad when they aren't so bad," Reeves said.

There are an estimated 18,000-20,000 humpbacks in the north Pacific, up from just 1,400 in the mid-1960s. A survey in the early 1990s of humpbacks in the north Atlantic showed the population at 10,600. The results of a follow-up to that study, expected by the end of the year, are likely to show this population has grown, too.
