The humpback whale follows the giant panda off the endangered list

Federal authorities are taking most humpback whales off the endangered species list.

The National Marine Fisheries Service said Monday that nine of the 14 distinct populations of humpbacks have recovered enough in the last 40 years to warrant being removed from the endangered list.

The agency says four distinct populations remain listed as endangered and one as threatened.

The National Marine Fisheries Service last year proposed removing most of the world’s humpback whales from the endangered species list. It said populations of the animals have steadily grown since the international community banned commercial whaling nearly 50 years ago.

On Sunday, a leading international group took the giant panda off its endangered list thanks to decades of conservation efforts, but China’s government discounted the move, saying it did not view the status of the country’s beloved symbol as any less serious.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature said that the panda is now classified as a “vulnerable” instead of “endangered” species, reflecting its growing numbers in the wild in southern China. It said the wild panda population jumped to 1,864 in 2014 from 1,596 in 2004, the result of work by Chinese agencies to enforce poaching bans and expand forest reserves.

The report warned, however, that although better forest protection has helped increase panda numbers, climate change is predicted to eliminate more than 35 percent of its natural bamboo habitat in the next 80 years, potentially leading to another decline.

In a statement to The Associated Press, China’s State Forestry Administration said Monday that it disputed the classification change because pandas’ natural habitats have been splintered by natural and human causes. The animals live in small, isolated groups of as few as 10 pandas that struggle to reproduce and face the risk of disappearing altogether, the agency said.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 6:14 PM with the headline "The humpback whale follows the giant panda off the endangered list."