Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 21 May 2008 | Nature 453, - (2008) | doi:10.1038/453433a
News
Whales are on the rise
Humpback population shows signs of recovery.
Humpback whale numbers in the northern Pacific Ocean have ballooned to nearly 20,000, the largest population seen since the majestic mammals were hunted nearly to extinction half a century ago.
The number of humpbacks hit an all-time low of 1,400 or even lower by 1966, when their hunting was banned internationally.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Despite the cheeriness of this article, in general whale populations are in trouble in the western pacific and in the southern oceans surrounding antarctica. It's a lovely broad brush your painting with in this article. And it's painting us a lovely, world filled with gum-drops smiles and candy-cane rainbows. I wish i could live in it. But the truth is is that we live in the real world. And nations which continue whaling and continuing polluting the oceans with millions of tons of plastic each year, and decimating the fish stocks with long-line and gill net fishing, are destroying our oceans for us and for the future. We cannot tolerate this behavior. Conservation science must stop the wholesale slaughter of whales, fishes and sharks by the ton, or else our coastal oceans will be as absent of life as Jupiter.
Are people sure that they want to find the whale's breeding grounds? After all, the whalers would love to have that knowledge so that they can find the whales more easily.
Good news for sushi lovers !