How did killer whales become endangered?

Answer 1

Killer whales, also known as orcas, are not officially endangered. Killer whales have been exploited for their meat, hides, blubber and internal organs for a long time, but never on a large-scale basis. Habitat loss and pollution remain problems for the killer whales.

Some local populations are definitely endangered or threatened, but as a species, they are classified as "data deficient". This means there are different species of killer whales, and some of them may well be in need of protection. For example, in late 2005, the Southern Resident Killer Whales, which are a group of populations in the eastern North Pacific Ocean, were placed on the US Endangered species list.

Answer 2

The International Whaling Commission first declared them to be a protected species in 1966. They were first protected across the world by International Law in 1967. Then in June of 1970 they were listed with the status of "endangered" in their range by the US Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969. For more details, please see the sites listed below.

Answer 3

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) faced their most serious threat during WWII. All of the countries involved in that conflict had to have anti-submarine warfare capabilities for their own protection. Practice submarines were expensive to make and difficult to control, so the nations of the world used killer whales instead because it was a known fact that they were man-killers. We bombed them, strafed them and dropped depth charges on them wherever we found them, and we not only declared war on them, we didn't even have the grace to notice when they surrendered.

It is easy to assume that Killer whales have always been the non-aggressive creatures we see today, but just remember that every culture on the face of the earth that has an ocean shoreline has, in its legends, tales of killer whales munching on the citizenry.

Answer 4

Blue whales were hunted until near extinction. These giant creatures came under protection starting in 1966.