Conservation Status of Whales and Dolphins

The mammalian order cetacea contains approximately 90 species of whales and dolphins.  They range in size from the tiny vaquita porpoise, less than a meter and a half long and weighing in at 50 kgs, to the mighty blue whale, at more than 30 meters and 150,000 kgs! – believed to be the largest animal that has ever existed.   The majority are toothed – everything from oceanic dolphins to beaked whales to belugas – but with all of the largest species using baleen to filter their food from seawater (with sperm whales being the sole exception).  What they have in common is that all have been under enormous pressure from human activities. 

Some species did catch a break beginning in the 1980s when a ‘moratorium’ on whaling was declared, and which most countries subsequently followed.  After directly slaughtering over 3 million during the 20^th century, it became abundantly clear that many were on the brink of extinction, and it was finally agreed to by the international community that they deserved our protection.  The curtailment of whaling since then has enabled a few of the larger species to recover their numbers to an appreciable degree.

Today, many species of dolphins, who do not fall under the protection of IWC regulations, continue to be hunted for meat and captured and confined for human entertainment.  A far greater number of cetaceans are killed as a byproduct of human activities, with commercial fishing being by far the biggest culprit.  In addition to entanglement in nets (often discarded and left drifting in the ocean) threats include boat collisions, pollution, plastics, and our depletion of their food sources by overfishing.  Also, the noise of our activities can be extremely disruptive to species who are so reliant on their acoustic environment to navigate, communicate, and find food.  And that doesn’t even begin to address the problems created for them by the degradation of their habitats from climate change.  

We are a long way from agreeing amongst ourselves as to the degree of protection this order of animals deserves.  But I think we can all agree that the world is much better off with whales and dolphins than it is without them.  Their continued existence matters, not only to them, but also to us.

So how are we doing?  Well, in a very few words, not very well.  Despite the progress we’ve made for a few species, noted above, the overall situation at this time is not good.  

More than 130 species, subspecies or subpopulations of cetaceans have been evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for publication on that organization’s Red List.  These assessments and classifications are updated regularly, but below is a summary of cetaceans’ red list status as of today.  The categories used by the IUCN, in order or threat/urgency, are:  Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near Threatened, and Least Concern.  An additional category is Data Deficient, means that not enough is known about the species to make a proper determination.  There are nine such instances of cetaceans where the species may be at risk, but more research is needed.  

There are four cetacean species and 18 subspecies or subpopulations that are currently classified as Critically Endangered. 

The Yangtze River Dolphin is almost certainly already functionally extinct, meaning that its population has been reduced to a point where the species can no longer play a significant role in its ecosystem.  Functionally extinct is also a term used to describe a population that is no longer considered viable, thus its eventual extinction is all but inevitable.  

The Vaquita Porpoise now lives only in a remote corner of the inner Gulf of California in Mexico, and is similarly classified.  Conservationists believe that as few as a dozen individuals survive, likely destined to die is gill nets set illegally to catch totoaba fish.  

The Atlantic Humpback Dolphin is now limited to a narrow coastal zone of West Africa.  Found almost entirely in shallow waters, the species is known to interact with humans, even engaging in cooperative fishing with locals, but this contact has proven lethal.  Again, incidental capture in gill nets is the biggest threat, but there are many others, including habitat loss and degradation.

The North Atlantic Right Whale was the most recent addition to the classification critically endangered.  With as few as 400 individuals remaining, the species needs to be much better protected against vessel strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and the noise of human activities.  We need the political will to better manage commercial activities along migration routes, and to provide marine protected areas where the species can recover. 

Others in this, the least desirable of IUCN categories, include six isolated subpopulations of Irrawaddy Dolphin, two in marine waters in the Philippines and four in fresh waters such as Vietnam’s famous Mekong River, or Songkhla Lake in Thailand.   

A number of others are also in trouble.  Eleven cetacean species are classified as endangered, seven as vulnerable, and ten as near threatened.  

Among those of greatest concern at this time are a some of the larger whales, despite the IWC moratorium.  These are:  the Sei Whale, Blue Whale, and North Pacific Right Whale.  As well, freshwater or river dolphins tend to fare poorly, given their proximity to humans.  These include the South Asian River Dolphins, Amazon River Dolphin, and the Tucuxi, which looks like a smaller version of the Bottlenose Dolphin, but lives in the Amazon Basin.  Oceanic toothed whales in the endangered category are the Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin, Perrin’s Beaked Whale and Hector’s Dolphin, which is the only cetacean endemic to New Zealand.

So these are the most urgent priorities with regards to cetacean conservation.  However, before we start to feel too good about the 49 species classified as Least Concern, let’s note a couple of things.

1. These assessments, and the statuses that result from them, are relative to the conditions that prevail overall at any given point in time.  The world has lost over half of its individual wild animals since 1970, just over 50 years ago.  Whales and dolphins are not exempt from this, and though some species have done better than others in the face of these enormous stresses placed on their numbers by human activities, it’s clear that the health of cetacean populations generally is significantly diminished relative to what it was only half a century ago.
2. With worldwide systemic threats like climate change (primarily, but also others like plastic pollution, mercury pollution, etc.) entire ecosystems, indeed the biosphere as a whole, are threatened.  As this process unfolds, any population considered ‘of least concern’ today could begin to collapse very rapidly.  So we need to focus not only on urgent local issues – e.g. removing illegal nets in the Gulf of California – but also on the health of the global systems that we depend on as well as they.

Conservation of any species is important for its own sake, obviously.  And with cetaceans it’s especially important because whales and dolphins play a critical role in the maintenance of healthy ocean ecosystems.  And without that we ourselves have no future.  But let me also say this.  The importance of this particular conservation issue is so much greater than only that, given the nature of these animals. 

Whales and dolphins possess levels of consciousness, self-awareness, cognitive sophistication and social intelligence that are by no means inferior to our own.  At least the evidence is clearly pointing in that direction so far.  They love as we do, and they can suffer as we do.  In this world we share, I would consider them kindred spirits.  In time, we’ll probably decide they have as much right to their lives as we do.  Even if we get to the point where we’ve all decided not to kill them, we’ll still have to acknowledge that we simply don’t have the right to engage in activities which result in the deprivation of their food sources or of their habitats. 

I’d also suggest we think about the extinction of a cetacean in the following way.  With any animal, extinction means the loss of a species that’s evolved to play a specific and usually vital role in its habitat, a loss sure to be felt by the whole that’s left behind.  But with certain higher order animals, we lose so much more than that.  Extinction of a whale or dolphin means the loss of a unique language, of knowledge gained over time and painstakingly passed on through the generations.  It’s the loss of a culture.  You could not revive such a species through cloning or DNA, then let instinct take over.  The essence would be gone, and no future technology could ever bring it back.

When the subject is a whale or dolphin, it’s much more than a conservation issue, for us it’s a moral issue.  

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Jason, Canadian Cetacean Alliance