When I came into the environmental movement in the 1960s, the emblem of what we are losing that meant most to me was the humpback whale. Later, in the 1980s, I played The Songs of the Humpback Whale – which I had bought way back in 1970 – to Gaia and Hania in the dark when they were very young, songs recorded by Dr Roger Payne. For more on all of this, see Wikipedia entry. Today, happily, The Times reports that humpback numbers are back up to around 40,000, suggesting that the magnificent creatures have managed to haul themselves back from the edge of the precipice. But climate change, by impact ingthe evailability of food, particularly krill, could still reverse the process.
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