A fin whale in the waters off the Azores

© Luis Quinta/Minden Picture

World Wildlife Day. Fin whales: A success story

This year marks the fifth anniversary of this United Nations-backed celebration of all the non-human animals that share our planet. And this is the first year that World Wildlife Day is focusing on marine life. Fin whales, like the one in our photo today, are listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the conservation status rankings. So, they’re threatened by climate change, pollution, shipping, and other concerns, but they’ve bounced back from the brink in the early 1900s, by which time centuries of whaling crews had hunted fin whales to near-extinction.