In Hobart in the early 1800s, for instance, records suggest sailors were forced to carefully navigate through multitudes of whales congregating in the Derwent river, while home owners by the water complained of noisy whale song.<\/p>\n
But when large-scale industrial whaling ramped up last century, all whales species were hunted for their oil, and many were almost wiped out.<\/p>\n
Fluke recognition for whales like fingerprints<\/a><\/p>\n Thousands of humpback whale flukes key to “fingerprint” database \u2014 proof there is only one Migaloo.<\/p>\n Eastern Australian humpbacks, which typically head up the coast to breed in winter tropical waters before migrating back to Antarctica in summer to feed, were targeted by whalers after blue and southern right whales became scarce.<\/p>\n “We have a reasonable estimate that the eastern Australian humpback population was at least 30,000 whales prior to the last period of whaling,” Dr Franklin said.<\/p>\n “The best estimate we have is that by the early 1960s, only 150 individuals out of that 30,000 survived.<\/p>\n “They were taken to the brink of extinction.”<\/p>\n In 1963, the International Whaling Commission banned humpback whaling in the Southern Hemisphere. In the three decades that followed, eastern humpback numbers rose to around 1,000 individuals.<\/p>\n During the 1990s and into the 2000s, the population steadily increased. The last formal estimate of the eastern Australian humpback population suggested it was around 25,000 in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n Individual humpback whales can be identified by the colouration of the underside of their tail, and the notches along its edge. (Supplied: Trish Franklin\/The Oceania Project)<\/p>\n The newest population estimate was calculated using observations and photographs submitted to the HappyWhale whale tracking catalogue by nearly 700 research scientists, whale watch tour operators, and citizen scientists, Dr Franklin said.<\/p>\n “By 2024, we had a 40-year dataset with over 15,000 individual whales available to us with multiple yearly sightings, which was manna from heaven for the statisticians, who then pumped all that information into their statistical models.”<\/p>\n They determined there were more than 50,000 individual east coast humpbacks \u2014 and maybe as many as 60,000 \u2014 last year.<\/p>\n Report co-authors Lyndon Brooks (left) and Wally Franklin. (Supplied: Wally Franklin\/The Oceania Project)<\/p>\n Why have eastern humpback numbers bounced back so well?<\/p>\n While most whale populations have increased after the whaling ban, few are doing as well as the eastern Australian humpbacks.<\/p>\n Southern right whale numbers, for instance, have plateaued well below pre-whaling levels<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even some other groups of humpbacks, like those that give birth in the South Pacific, aren’t recovering as quickly as the eastern Australian population.<\/p>\n How did humpbacks recover?<\/a><\/p>\n Pushed to the brink of extinction, humpback whales have made a remarkable recovery. So how have they succeeded where other species have failed?<\/p>\n Scientists don’t know why this is the case, but less competition for food and Australia’s long coastlines could give local humpbacks a leg up, Dr Franklin said.<\/p>\n “Long coastlines provide numerous habitats that are highly suitable for mums to spend quality time with the calves in the early years of their life.”<\/p>\n Adelaide Dedden, a marine scientist at the University of New South Wales who was not involved in the new report, said humpbacks appeared to be more adaptable than other species, such as southern right whales, for instance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n