Putin unlikely saviour of endangered grey whales

[eppur_se_muova]

With tens of billions of petrodollars floating in limbo, there are no runaway winners in the long and nasty battle over who will ultimately control the lucrative oil and gas deposits around Russia’s remote Sakhalin island.

Unless, of course, you count the approximately 100 grey whales — the only ones of the species left on Earth — swimming idly off its shores in the frigid waters of the northern Pacific Ocean.

These whales are the last of a seriously endangered species but they have found an unlikely, but formidable ally in what is, literally a life and death struggle to avoid extinction: Russia’s inscrutable President Vladimir Putin.

“I don’t think anybody’s accused Mr. Putin of being a raging environmentalist,” said Francis Grant-Suttie, director of private-sector relations with the World Wildlife Fund in Washington.
***
Putin has become the unlikely savior of grey whales — whether he cares for them or not — because of a bitter legal dispute that has raged for several months between the Kremlin and an international consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell.
***
more: http://www.yuzno.com/news/927#more-927

(Apparently this article was originally published in the Ottawa citizen; I couldn't get the search engine on that site to work for me, and couldn't locate this article there.)

[jpak]

1. Only 100 grey whales left on Earth??? That's somewhat misleading

The Eastern Pacific stocks have rebounded dramatically - it's the Western Pacific stocks that are severely endangered...

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Northern Pacific around 100, Northern Atlantic around 350 ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=77557&mesg_id=77557

Not exactly a surplus of either.

[jpak]

3. Not to quibble...but...

:evilgrin:

The Atlantic gray whale population was extirpated in the 1700's and the Eastern North Pacific stocks have rebounded to near pre-exploitaion levels...

http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/graywhl.htm

<snip>

Status: At one time there were three gray whale populations: a north Atlantic population, now extinct, possibly the victims of over-hunting; a Korean or western north Pacific stock now very depleted, also possibly from over-hunting; and the eastern north Pacific population, the largest surviving population. Hunted to the edge of extinction in the 1850's after the discovery of the calving lagoons, and again in the early 1900's with the introduction of floating factories, the gray whale was given partial protection in 1937 and full protection in 1947 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Since that time the eastern north Pacific gray whale population has made a remarkable recovery and now numbers between 19,000 and 23,000, probably close to their original population size.

<snip>

:hi:

[eppur_se_muova]

4. You're right, I was thinking of right whales ... and the link was to a right whale story...

I'm surprised the American Cetacean Society hasn't gotten flak from the American Chemical Society for the use of "acsonline.org".

[jpak]

5. I saw that too (the acs thing)

thought I had googled my way into greenwash nightmare...