{"id":194484,"date":"2025-10-07T04:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/194484\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T04:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:20:08","slug":"southern-right-whales-awe-admirers-after-coming-back-from-brink-of-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/194484\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern right whales awe admirers after coming back from brink of extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEN\u00cdNSULA VALD\u00c9S, Argentina — PEN\u00cdNSULA VALD\u00c9S, Argentina (AP) \u2014 After coming back from the brink of extinction, Southern right whales are swimming in greater numbers off the coast of Argentina’s Patagonia this year, delighting tourists seeking to catch a glimpse of their acrobatics.<\/p>\n

Peninsula Vald\u00e9s, located in the Patagonian province of Chubut, is globally important for the conservation of marine mammals and is home to a key breeding population of Southern right whales<\/a> \u2014 once an endangered species \u2014 as well as elephant seals and sea lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen whales in Canada and California, but this was the best and probably the largest number of whales I\u2019ve ever seen in my life,\u201d said Tino Ventz, a German tourist who recently visited the peninsula with his girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The Southern right whale was nearly exterminated by hunting expeditions up until the last century. Before large-scale whaling began, the population in southern waters was estimated at around 100,000, before it was decimated to about 600. Since then, it has slowly recovered to roughly 4,700 whales around Peninsula Vald\u00e9s today.<\/p>\n

Whale-watching season in the south American country<\/a> peaks between August and September. This year, more than 2,000 whales have been spotted, though the actual number is likely higher, scientists say.<\/p>\n

Ventz, 24, and his partner joined Argentine Andrea Delfino and her children on a boat trip. Southern winds stirred the whales into more acrobatic breaching, a spectacle that leaves an indelible impression on those who witness it.<\/p>\n

Other tourists preferred to watch the whales from the shore, as is common in neighboring Brazil<\/a> or Uruguay.<\/p>\n

Watching from the beach, Agustina Guidol\u00edn, fulfilled her dream of witnessing \u201cthe immensity that borders on the magical and the wild.\u201d The tourists were at El Doradillo Park, a protected natural area in Puerto Madryn, where whales spend time close to shore with their young after giving birth.<\/p>\n

In addition to Peninsula Vald\u00e9s and other points in Patagonia, the whales\u2019 migration route extends along Uruguay\u2019s eastern coast and southern Brazil.<\/p>\n

Santiago Fern\u00e1ndez, a biologist with Argentina\u2019s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, is part of a project that since 1999 has carried out two to three aerial surveys each year along 640 kilometers (400 miles) of Patagonian coastline. This year\u2019s count recorded 2,100 whales \u2014 863 of them mothers with calves, and the rest solitary individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re underestimating the number of whales in the area,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said of the census, noting that it represents only a snapshot, since whales move in and out of the same region as they migrate.<\/p>\n

He explained that in 1999 \u201cabout 500 whales were counted along that same route,\u201d and that \u201cwe\u2019re currently seeing a 3% annual growth rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez added that another project, \u201cFollowing Whales,\u201d conducted by several national and international organizations, tracks individual whales via satellite telemetry within the San Matias Gulf to the north, the San Jorge Gulf to the south, and beyond, to better understand their routes.<\/p>\n

From that project, which began in 2014, scientists learned that once the calves grow, the mothers lead them deeper into the gulfs \u2014 whales that are therefore not included in the aerial census.<\/p>\n

The growing population is leading to a dispersal \u2014 especially of juveniles and mothers that have already calved \u2014 toward the San Matias and San Jorge gulfs, and even as far north as the coast of Buenos Aires province.<\/p>\n

This expansion also brings the whales closer to risks posed by human activity, such as fishing nets and boat propellers, researchers have found, based on injuries suffered by whales unable to return to Antarctica at the end and beginning of their natural cycle.<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEN\u00cdNSULA VALD\u00c9S, Argentina — PEN\u00cdNSULA VALD\u00c9S, Argentina (AP) \u2014 After coming back from the brink of extinction, Southern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[96672,2837,1331,49,48,2847,18156,295,2841,66,16580,883,10128],"class_list":{"0":"post-194484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-96672","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-climate-and-environment","14":"tag-endangered-species","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-whales","19":"tag-world-news","20":"tag-zoology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}