How does Merwin’s poem "For a Coming Extinction" reflect what was happening with whaling in 1982?

In 1982, the International Whaling Commission declared a pause on commercial whaling with what is now known as the commercial whaling moratorium.
This pause had been much needed, because many whale species were becoming more and more in danger of extinction. Even with the moratorium, an unfortunate exclusion made it okay to hunt whales for "research," something which is difficult to prove and has caused controversy among environmental groups.
Still, the moratorium made a big difference, changing the number of killed whales from 70,000 in the 1960s to 2,000 in the mid 2010s.
Merwin's poem was written before the moratorium, and he was horrified at the speed at which whales were being killed. His poem, though written as if to the whales, is a wake-up call for people. He's trying to point out the damage that had been done to whales at the time and to show how close they were to extinction.
The poem is raw with emotion. His first lines are "Grey whale / now that we are sending you to The End." The End, of course, is extinction and death. He accuses humankind as the ones guilty for the end of the whales and implies that the end of the whales and other endangered species will also be the end of humans.
https://iwc.int/commercial

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/at-a-glance-whaling-moratorium

Merwin's poem highlights the threatened extinction of the whale species. In his poem, Merwin speaks to the whale as if it could understand human words. Here's the most ominous part of the poem:

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless

In this stanza, Merwin is talking about the reality of extinction. The whale will no longer see its calves cavorting in the waters under the sun. Instead, it will join other extinct animals (such as the sea cows, auks, and gorillas) in a dark museum, where "irreplaceable hosts" are uncountable in number. Merwin's poem was written in 1967 and looked to the future, when endangered species would conceivably become extinct.

The poem reflected the growing concern among the international community in the 60s and 70s regarding endangered whales. In the early 1960s, almost 70,000 whales had been killed. At about the same time, "save the whales" campaigns exploded all across the world.

For its part, the IWC (International Whaling Commission) took note of the international outcry. In 1979, it decreed that there would be a moratorium on using factory ships to hunt whales (with an exception for minke whales). The IWC also made the entire Indian Ocean a whale sanctuary.

In 1982, the IWC decreed a pause in all commercial whaling for their members for the 1985–86 season and beyond. The commercial whaling moratorium was enacted because of fears that several species of whales were headed for extinction. Merwin addresses this concern in his poem "For a Coming Extinction."

Today, Iceland, Japan, and Norway are the only countries that hunt whales. The WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) reports that more than 30,000 whales have been killed since the IWC moratorium, which makes Merwin's poem still relevant today.
https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/cetaceans/iwc/iwc_successes_failures/

https://www.voanews.com/usa/nations-poet-laureate-sounds-alarm