The right whale stuff

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

While Japan was killing whales,
Brazilian president Fernando Henrique
Cardoso on September 19 designated an
offshore sanctuary for southern Atlantic
right whales in their “nursery” along the
lower coast of Santa Catarina state.
The decree rewarded 20 years of
work by Southern Right Whale Project
founder Jose Truda Palazzo Jr., who at
age 18 rediscovered the whales after they
were believed to have been hunted to extinction.

Although southern right whales were
protected by global treaty in 1935, Brazil
continued killing them until 1973.
Seeking funding for a proposed
National Right Whale Conservation
Center since 1997, Jose Truda Palazzo Jr.
and the Cardoso government expect the
Santa Catarina region to become one of the
world’s premier whale-watching locations.
Southern right whales were also
considered extinct in New Zealand waters,
but were rediscovered off the Auckland
Islands in 1997. DNA testing confirmed that
the Auckland Islands whales are distinct
from any other known living pods.