SPRING 2019
Volume XXXIX Issue 1
The Rise of Environmentalism & Wildlife Successes
tidelines A Publication for Friends of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium
by Ed Mastro, CMA Acting Director
I must be getting old. I find myself being more introspective, remembering the “good old days.” A distinct memory that I have held onto is painting my school’s trash cans green in the early 1970s for the nation’s first Earth Day. Of course this was in San Francisco and San Francisco was at the center of the counter culture revolution. I paid little heed as I was just a kid in middle school. What I did not realize was all the important legislation that was being considered and ultimately passed during the early 1970s. And, who signed the bills? Most people are surprised to learn it was President Richard Nixon. In January 1970, Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, then later that year created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Once EPA was formed, many new laws were passed, including The Clean Air Act which set air quality standards; The Clean Water Act that placed a limit on pollution entering waterways; The
What’s Inside
A facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation & Parks with support from Friends of CMA
Creature Feature ................. 3 Science Centerfold............... 4 Discovery Lecture Series .... 5 Save the Date! ..................... 8
Endangered Species Act that expanded federal protection and banned killing of all endangered species; and The Safe Drinking Water Act that outlawed adulterating drinking water. All these forward thinking bans have had a positive impact on our ecosystems and species survival. These federal laws have an enormous impact on our Southern California wildlife. Intensive whaling drastically reduced gray whale populations over the last 300-400 years. One of the biggest threats to the grays was targeted hunting in the protected lagoons where whales birth young. Once there were three populations of grays. The population in the North Atlantic is extinct, the population in the Western Pacific is dangerously close to extinction and the population off our coast (Eastern Pacific) has recovered and is the first marine mammal to be taken off the endangered species list in 1994. Today there are over 25,000 whales along the West Coast of
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