Group Seeks Protection for Right Whales - AP

[Eugene]

Group Seeks Protection for Right Whales

By MARY PEMBERTON
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 28, 2006; 8:10 PM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- After winning more protection for polar bears, a conservation
group is pressuring the U.S. government to keep the North Pacific right whale from
going extinct. The whales are the most endangered whale in the world.

The administration of President Bush proposed Wednesday that polar bears be listed as
"threatened" because of melting Arctic sea ice related to global warming. A threatened
listing is one step lower than endangered, meaning the species is likely to face extinction
in the future.

Also Wednesday, the conservation group got the Bush administration to propose that the
North Pacific right whale get its own endangered listing, apart from right whales in the
North Atlantic. The proposal must be finalized in a year.

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While scientists view the North Pacific and North Atlantic right whales as genetically
distinct, they are listed as the same species. A 1991 recovery plan for right whales makes
scant reference to whales in the North Pacific, instead focusing on the North Atlantic,
where there are believed to be about 350, Cummings said.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/28/AR2006122800929.html