REBOUNDING HUMPBACKS MAY BE TARGETED BY HUNTERS AGAIN
By Lori Tighe, Star-Bulletin
Wednesday, December 8, 1999

The good news: There are more humpback whales than previously thought.

The bad news: They may be taken off the endangered species list and hunted
once again.

Several scientists at last week's Maui whale conference sponsored by the
Society for Marine Mammalogists, which drew 1,800 people, revealed data
showing the endangered humpback whale population is indeed recovering.

The new data, yet to be published, were released just as the humpbacks
began trickling into the Hawaiian Islands for their annual mating season.
As recently as last year, scientists estimated their numbers at around
3,000 here in Hawaii, and 6,000 total in the North Pacific.

But three new major studies showed at least 4,300 whales here with a total
population as high as 10,000.

"It's important for people to know they are coming back," said Allen Tom,
manager of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.
"It's great news. It means our protective efforts are paying off."

But in the coming year, it is believed countries such as Japan will ask for
the humpbacks to be stripped of their endangered status so they can be
hunted, said Bruce Mate, Ph.D., an oceanographer with Oregon State
University.

"There is an interest in resuming the hunt for these animals. The data will
probably encourage people to reconsider moving them off the endangered
species list," Mate said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Japan offers that
suggestion at the next International Trade in Endangered Species
conference."

Controversy surrounded native Americans in Washington state who recently
began hunting the gray whale when it was taken off the endangered species
list a few years ago.

Native Hawaiians have shown no interest in hunting the humpback whales,
said Naomi McIntosh, Oahu Humpback Sanctuary liaison.

"The humpback is not known to be a cultural preference among native
Hawaiians," she said. "There's no immediate interest in Hawaii to hunt
them."

But the Japanese used to routinely come close to the Hawaiian Islands to
hunt humpbacks.

"We're still assessing the needs of the species," McIntosh said.
"We're optimistic about their recovery, but we still feel the species is
not out of the woods yet."

The humpbacks are encountering new threats to their survival, including
overfishing, marine debris, pollution from development and human population
growth, McIntosh said.

Mate's study, which tagged whales and then tracked them by satellite,
showed the humpbacks typically stay in Hawaii for less than a month, coming
and going through the winter season.

"Even though we see them for five or six months, they are not the same
whales. There's a lot of turnover," Mate said. "They are much more mobile
than we thought."

Mate has tracked humpbacks in Hawaii since 1995. The data showed, for
example, one whale visiting five Hawaiian islands in 10 days.

The whales fan out from Alaska to Russia during the summer to feed but
return mainly to the Hawaiian Islands in the winter to mate.

"This is the central breeding and calving area for whales in much of the
North Pacific," Mate said.

People were excited about his and the other research supporting the
humpback recovery because, Mate said, "It gives us a better sense there are
more animals than we thought."

Joe Mobley, Ph.D., a whale researcher with the University of Hawaii-West
Oahu, said that based on his six-year aerial study, the humpback whale
population is growing by 7 percent a year.

He flew over the Hawaiian Islands and counted whales in 1993, 1995 and
1998. Then using formula calculations, he deduced the total population here.

"It's good news. All indications indicate the whale population is
recovering," he said.

A much larger collaborative study involving 6,000 photograph
identifications of humpback whales taken in four countries -- the United
States, Japan, Mexico and Canada -- calculated the total humpback whale
population in the North Pacific between 8,000 and 10,000.

"It was the first attempt to count the whales since whaling," said John
Calambokidis, the study's project director and a research biologist with
Cascadia Research in Olympia, Wash.

Commercial whaling of humpbacks ended in 1966, when fewer than 1,200 to
1,400 remained, he said. Historical estimates placed the whales at 15,000
before hunting, but scientists say that figure may be skewed because whale
catches were dramatically underreported.

"This new information is critical because this is a species that was driven
to the brink of extinction by our acts. It's still on the endangered
species list because of a century of a flourishing commercial industry," he
said. "Without these population estimates, we have no knowledge of their
recovery."

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