Gray Whales Need Protection: Groups Ask Government To Re-List Population Under the Endangered Species Act

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Gray Whales Need Protection: Groups Ask Government To

Re-List Population Under the Endangered Species Act

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TO NATIONAL, LEGAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:

Gray Whales Need Protection: Groups Ask Government To

Re-List Population Under the Endangered Species Act

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, WASHINGTON, Mar. 29 -/E-Wire/-- Australians for Animals and The Fund for Animals have filed a petition asking the U.S. government to list the eastern North Pacific or "California" gray whale population as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing is essential to protect gray whales and their habitat from increasing threats including global warming, El Nino events, benthic or bottom trawling, offshore oil and gas development, and the recent resumption of whaling by the Makah tribe.

The direct, indirect, and cumulative impact of these threats have drastically altered the ecology of the Bering and Chukchi Seas, resulting in a substantial decline in benthic amphipods -- small tube-building creatures who live on the ocean floor and are the primary prey of the gray whale. Without access to adequate food supplies, gray whale mortality has increased and births have declined substantially. The number of stranded whales reported in 2000 was 291 compared to only 250 between 1990 and 1998, while the number of gray whale calves declined from 1,520 in 1997 to only 282 in 2000.

"The gray whale is like a giant canary in a very large coal mine," said Sue Arnold, president of Australians for Animals. "The documented decline in the gray whale is indicative of a collapse in Arctic ecosystems which the U.S. government has largely ignored. Unless the government acknowledges and addresses the threat of global warming, eliminates bottom trawling, and provides ESA protection for gray whales and their habitat, the population will be extirpated."

The gray whale was nearly exterminated by 1880. The population was protected under the ESA from 1970 until 1994, when the government prematurely de-listed the population for political reasons. The loss of ESA protection and the deficiencies in other laws have eliminated any meaningful protection for gray whales and their habitat. The petition also challenges the government's overly optimistic gray whale population estimates, documenting that such estimates are uncertain, unreliable, and are based on insufficient information and flawed formulas.

"The government can no longer rely on fuzzy math to deceive the world into believing that the gray whale is safe," said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of The Fund for Animals. "It's time that gray whales and their habitat receive protection from warming seas, bottom trawlers, oil spills, and harpoons."

The Fund for Animals is headquartered in New York City, and Australians for Animals is based in Byron Bay, New South Wales. The two organizations previously combined efforts to secure a threatened listing for Australia's koala under the ESA, and to file a successful lawsuit to stop the Makah gray whale hunt in 1999.

The 44-page petition and executive summary are available at http://www.fund.org .

The Fund for Animals & Australians for Animals

D.J. Schubert of Schubert & Associates, [REDACTED-PHONE]; or Sue

Arnold of Australians for Animals, 011-61-2-66-843-769; or Michael Markarian

of The Fund for Animals, [REDACTED-PHONE] ext. 216

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