Once hunted nearly
to extinction, the humpback whales population that swims the seas between South
America and Antarctica has bounced back.
An estimated 25,000 Humpback
whales now live in the western South Atlantic. That’s almost 93 % of the
population’s prehunt levels, which also were simplified by a new counting
method, scientists report October 16 in Royal Society Open Science.
“It is good news,”
says María Vázquez, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico,
who was not involved in the valuation. She’s been reviewing a threatened
population of humpbacks off the west coast of Mexico and has detected its
progress, too. “We see it year after year, there are more animals, younger,
more offspring,” she added.
This might be part
of a global drift for humpbacks. 14 of the known populations — seven in the
Southern Hemisphere and seven in the Northern— 10 have shown symbols of
recovery, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The
remaining four are not recovering and are considered to be endangered.
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