Blue Whale Comeback at South Georgia Island

[lpetrich]

Blue whales have 'rediscovered' South Georgia - BBC News

Blue whale sightings off South Georgia raise hopes of recovery | Environment | The Guardian - "After single sighting in 20 years of surveys, new expedition and analysis bring 58"

South Georgia is a small island in the South Atlantic / Antarctic Ocean about 1,100 mi / 1,800 km due east of Cape Horn, the southernmost part of South America. It was a major whaling center in the early 20th cy., before most whaling was outlawed. Seals have recovered but whales have been much slower to recover, especially blue whales, the largest animals ever.

 

[bilby]

The Australian East Coast population of Humpback Whales took a very long time to recover after the end of hunting, but then there was a relatively rapid population boom.

It's estimated that the entire population in this region was fewer than 200 at the end of commercial whaling in 1962, down from around 30,000 before European settlement.

In 2004, the University of Queensland CEAL (Cetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratories) estimated this population (known as Southern Hemisphere population V) at 7,000 individuals, with population inceasing at about 10% per annum.

When I first went whale watching in Queensland, in the mid 1990s, Hervey Bay was the only location where sightings were sufficiently common to support a tourist industry, and even there it was a case of 'We will probably see whales today, if we're lucky'.

The 2015 CEAL survey estimated that there were 20,000 humpbacks in Southern Hemisphere population V; The 2020 projection is over 35,000, which exceeds the pre-whaling estimates of the size of the population.

It's now common to see Humpbacks migrating along the coast from almost any headland during August and September, and the tour operators in Hervey Bay advertise 'whales or your money back' - and refunds are almost unheard of.

Some days there are so many whales in Hervey Bay that the locals joke that you could walk to Fraser Island on their backs.

It's been a terrific success story, and the whales are perhaps more economically successful today as a tourist draw than they ever were during the 'fishery'.

Blue Whales seem to be recovering slightly more slowly, but the success of the Humpbacks suggests that a rapid recovery is likely after a few decades of being allowed to live unmolested, despite their relatively small numbers of calves per mother per annum.