ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A petition calling for the conservation of gray whales under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been filed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The petition was filed by retired professor of marine conservation at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Rick Steiner. He is asking for the petition to be expedited.
Gray whales were at one point nearly hunted to extinction by commercial harvests, Steiner said. But he said the under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the species saw a revitalization of population numbers…