The North Pacific humpback whale was removed from the endangered list in Canada over Easter weekend. The federal advisory committee on endangered species claims that the great rise in the whales’ population since commercial whaling was banned in 1966 has justified the reclassification. However, the whales’ classification downgrade also happens to remove a major legal hurdle that stood in the way of the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project.

There are number of articles on the recent change, most of which seem more suspect than happy in tone. The image below is from this article.

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Sources: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, WWF Canada
Graphic by Matthew Bambach / The Globe and Mail