Threats to whales - Brief Article

Better Nutrition, August, 2003

Environmentalists are now seeking to have a group of orcas (otherwise called killer whales) off the coast of British Columbia declared an endangered species in the United States because the whales are threatened by toxic pollution of the ocean.

The blubber of one orca that washed up dead near the US border 3 years ago was so contaminated with the deadly chemical PCB that the body qualified as "pathogenic waste." Ironically, it is illegal to dump pathogenic waste at sea.

The orcas in question are already on the endangered list in Canada--and, in fact, there are only 80 in existence. They form a distinct group that ranges from Vancouver Island in British Columbia to Puget Sound in Washington state. Peter Ross of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans says that whales are among the world's most PCB-contaminated marine mammals.

Meanwhile, the US Navy is in court defending a new sonar that critics say harms marine life, especially whales.