NOAA recently proposed removing most of the world’s humpback whales from the endangered species list, and for good reason. Whales are back. With many species hunted nearly to extinction at the turn of the 20th Century, a number of factors are responsible for their incredible comeback. While rarely mentioned, one of the biggest factors in whale recovery is economic. As E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., mentions in the documentary BLUE, nobody is concerned with running out of whale oil anymore, but … [Read more...]