Chickens and cows (and dogs) aren’t threatened with extinction. Different sets of people have different objections, but as far as whales are concerned, it’s mostly a conservation issue.
The tropical deforestation cycle is generally understood as: new roads lead to new accessible timber land. That land is then logged legally and illegally and abandoned. Hunger issues push sustenance farmers to slash-and-burn the cleared and abandoned areas for animal agriculture.
So, indeed, unless cotton and coffee and sugar behaviors can feasibly resolve hunger issues, it does make sense to focus on animal agriculture.
[0] https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/world-hunger-facts-stati... [1] http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-mi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_minke_whale#Conserva...
> From 1987 to the present, Japan has been sending a fleet consisting of a single factory ship and several catcher/spotting vessels to the Southern Ocean to catch Antarctic minkes under Article VIII of the IWC, which allows the culling of whales for scientific research. The first research program, Japanese Research Program in the Antarctic (JARPA), began in 1987-88, when 273 Antarctic minkes were caught. The quota and catch soon increased to 330 and 440. In 2005-06, the second research program, JARPA II, began. In its first two years, in what Japan called its "feasibility study", 850 Antarctic minkes, as well as 10 fin whales, were to be taken each season (2005–06 and 2006–07). The quota was reached in the first season, but due to a fire, only 508 Antarctic minkes were caught in the second. In 2007-08, because of constant harassment from environmental groups, they failed to reach the quota again, with a catch of only 551 whales.
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> In 1966, minke whales became the target of whaling operations off northeastern Brazil (6° – 8°S) due, once again, to the decline of sei whales.