© Wikipedia Commons/Public DomainDrawing of Northern Pacific Right Whale
John D. Sutter of CNN.com has posted an article, "Volunteers, scientists guard endangered whales," that reports that researchers, volunteers and scientists are routinely standing guard on beaches to identify right whales.
As it turns out these very large baleen whales are termed "right" because whalers used to think they were the right ones to hunt because they floated when killed and also came near the boat to ironically be killed.
These whales are huge and are probably the whales we all thought of as kids. They are as heavy as 70 tons which can also be the same size as 12 elephants.
As a result of this whaling mentality, these whales began to diminish.
Now their population has created 32 new calves this last "new birth period." It really is amazing since their population is around 400 adults in roughly two groups.
Another problem for these whales is that they get hit by ships. We lose about two whales to this problem every year.
There is now a new law that forces ships to slow down to protect them.
This is probably most sane approach to protecting species that I have seen. We haven't removed the species to a different locale or brought another animal in to control predators.
The acts we have taken are to limit hunting, slow ship speed and monitor birthing numbers.
I had a friend who raised dogs. He noticed that the dogs were having smaller litters and also that there was more of a frequency of pups dying.
He checked what he was feeding them and what the environment was around them regarding vermin and things that could hurt them.
Finally they called in a vet and after a long time the cause was identified as a sad lack of exercise. The dogs were in such sub-standard shape that it affected their breeding.
I bring that up because very often the reason that an animal or species of animal isn't surviving isn't very mysterious.
To their credit, scientists are handling this problem well.
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