THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406160512
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: Medium
Estimated at about 21,000, gray whales may be as numerous today as they were before an American whaling ship discovered their breeding grounds off Mexico's Baja Peninsula in 1855 and began the commercial slaughter that decimated the species. Commercial whaling wiped out two other gray whale populations in the Atlantic during Colonial times and later in the western Pacific.
{REST} Although the gray whales will remain under the jurisdiction of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which shields them from hunting in U.S. waters, several environmental groups warn that the whales will be more vulnerable to a variety of hazards - such as oil drilling, sea mining, salt extraction and tourism - than they were as an officially endangered species.
Government agencies disputed that.
Scott Smullen, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency will closely monitor California grays for the next five years.
``We'll still have the ability if the animal takes a turn for the worse . . . to put even further protections on that species,'' he said.
It remains illegal to kill, injure or harass any California gray whale unless one holds a scientific research permit, Smullen said.
The gray whale, which averages about 35 feet in length and weighs about 30 tons, is found only in the Pacific Ocean. The eastern Pacific, or California, stock breeds along the West Coast of North America.
The western Pacific, or Korean, stock breeds off the coast of eastern Asia and remains endangered. Estimates of the number of Korean gray whales range from several dozen to around 100.
by CNB