Walter Block thinks that we have to privatize them. Intelligence is not a yes or no thing, it is always a gradation. In the meantime, yes, I think that privatizing whales is the best way to see them preserved, understood, enlarged in numbers, and perhaps even bred for improvement. A good example is the privatization of elephants in Zimbabwe, which led to great increases in numbers and benefit to people, while the state ownership in Kenya led to decimation. Long ago, I read an article about homesteading and ranching the seas as well.
Technology now makes it easy to tag and herd whales and tuna.
Halibut and bottomfish can have property rights determined by territory and homesteading principles. It just requires applying principles that we have long used in two dimensions on land to the three-dimensional waters. I'm not familiar with the secessionist movements in Europe. I favor individual sovereignty, but secession can be positive or negative as a group depending on the respect for individual rights. You were a speaker at Virtual Con 1.