Conservation 
So far, the relationship between humans and whales has been a sad story. But it may not be too late to change the ending. International cooperation has succeeded in ending the slaughter of large whales in all but a few countries. This may have happened too late to help -- although no whale species has become extinct (the word used when not a single living member of a species remains) in this century, several have been reduced to such small populations that they may yet die out. So far, there has been little evidence that whale populations are recovering. Only the Gray whale seems to be a small success story -- once nearly extinct, there are now as many as 25,000 living in the Pacific Ocean.

Future conservation efforts will continue to focus on the need to help the populations of several cetacean species grow. Stopping the human slaughter of whales will not be enough if the problems of pollution and the actions of other predators prevent the dangerously low numbers of some species from increasing. The role of captive whales and dolphins in this process is a source of controversy. Some argue that capturing whales is cruel, and note that whales in captivity rarely live as long as do the same kinds of whales in the wild. But others maintain that captivity offers a better chance for scientists to study how whales reproduce; without this kind of knowledge, the restoration of some whale populations will be difficult.