Humpback whales once on the brink of extinction make remarkable recovery

A humpback whale population in the South Atlantic that was nearly hunted to extinction has made an astonishing rebound, researchers say.

In a new study published this month in the Royal Society Open Science, the authors write that the Western South Atlantic (WSA) humpbacks were "the first major target of commercial whaling in the Antarctic." Worldwide, 300,000 humpback whales were killed by hunters between the late 1700s and mid-1900s, Smithsonian reports, and by 1958, just 440 WSA humpbacks were left.

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission prohibited commercial hunting, and it was estimated in the mid-2000s that the WSA population had only recovered by about 30 percent. Researchers decided it was time for a new estimate, taking into consideration the historical decline of the whales and data from recent aerial and boat surveys. They were shocked by what they calculated: there are now 24,900 WSA humpbacks in the region, nearly 93 percent of the population size before hunting began.

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Although climate change is a threat — it is forcing krill, the whales' primary food source, to move south — the study's authors say there is a "high probability" that by 2030, the population will be at 99 percent of pre-hunting numbers. "This is a clear example that if we do the right thing, then the population will recover," whale expert Alexandre Zerbini told USA Today. "I hope it serves as an example that we can do the same thing for other animal populations."