"...through the twenty-second century, oceanic chemical pollution reached a degree of severity so extreme that the last whales died out. 

This information barely fed into the news, and from there, barely made it into the sphere of global consciousness. And so the greatest of creatures disappeared, with little more than the flash of a few screens for fanfare. And none to mourn them.

In many senses, most knowledgeable animals had known they would go extinct. It seemed, and was, inevitable. Their genetic pools shrank to an extraordinary degree in the centuries previous, overfishing and overhunting drove them out of their standard migration patterns. And with the acidification of the oceans, it was no surprise that the loss of plankton led to their starvation.

It was a fight long lost. Conservation efforts ceased dozens of decades previous, mostly due to the economic situation internationally. There was simply no money available for it, and as they grew fewer, there was less hope, and therefore, less need. The rich had no need for them aside from an attraction or diversion, and there was no financial sense in saving them only for that. The middle classes had long since vanished, and there was no meaningful leverage by the animals that were left to save the last breeding pair off the Pacific coast. 

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

In some ways, we can attribute the loss of these creatures to the changes that happened in the century previous; not as a matter of material effort, but as the foundation that creates those efforts.

Global education collapsed due to the effectual desintegration of the remaining nations in favor of Corporate 'guidance', which prioritized the availability of cheap labor, resource extraction, trade infrastructure, and everything else that furthered their interests. After that time, with education only reserved for those who could pay for it or indenture themselves into servitude, few animals ever learned about the extinction, or even the historical fact of these whales.

They lived their lives, never knowing that these beasts once roamed the seas. Leviathans of peace. Simply gone.

And now, we are alone."

Artym Polites, "The Loss of The New World", p. 326.