National Geographic Episodes on PBS

Scientists and conservationists in Washington state, Florida, Greenland and Tonga aid “Whales in Crisis.” Says one: “You can't walk away from animals [with] that kind of magnetism.” In Washington's Puget Sound, orcas seem to be harmed by the Navy's use of sonar (while pollution and decreasing salmon stocks are doing damage as well). And in the Florida Keys, no one knows what caused pilot whales to beach themselves in the spring of 2003. But in Greenland, Danish scientists studying bowhead whales are making progress in following their migratory patterns. This might help in increasing the stock, which has sunk to about 350. And in Tonga, one conservationist (whose father was a whaler) is fighting to stop a proposed return of limited hunting. After all, he argues, the tourism whales generate is far more valuable.