Saving Whales
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:
ROME––Italy, France, and Monaco on November 25, 1999 jointly declared their Mediterranean territorial waters to be a whale sanctuary. All cetaceans are protected within the sanctuary, which extends from the Giens peninsula in France to the north of Sardinia and the south Tuscany coast in Italy.
Among the beneficiaries are about 2,000 fin whales plus 25,000 to 45,000 striped dolphins.
The Mediterranean whale sanctuary was created, after 10 years of negotiation, 40 days after the legislature of the German state of Schleswig Holstein voted to establish a whale sanctuary around the islands of Sylt and Amrum, within the Waddan Sea National Park. The Sylt-Amrum area is considered an important porpoise breeding habitat.