\u201cThese images really bring home the physical and direct impact we\u2019re having on these animals, especially on animals that size,\u201d says Dr Raphael Mayaud, a marine ecologist at Griffith University and a member of an expert group advising the International Whaling<\/a> Commission (IWC) on vessel strikes.<\/p>\n Rebecca Dunlop, an associate professor and humpback expert at the University of Queensland, says most of the images showed injuries to the back and rear of the whales, \u201csuggesting they are surfacing as the boat propeller goes past and over their back\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen migrating humpbacks travel and surface like clockwork they don\u2019t seem to be able to change their dive and travel behaviour to avoid an intercept pathway \u2013 this could be due to a boat approaching the intercept point at speed where they just don\u2019t have the time to make an avoidance decision,\u201d Dunlop says<\/p>\n Conservation success story<\/p>\n The IWC banned humpback whaling in the southern hemisphere in 1963 \u2013 after numbers had already crashed.<\/p>\n Soviet whalers continued to hunt them in the Southern Ocean until the early 1970s. Estimates from the 1960s put their numbers off the east coast of Australia at less than 300.<\/p>\n An adult humpback whale with its right fluke chopped off. As populations have increased alongside boating and water recreation, the numbers of vessel strikes have also probably increased, whale experts say. Photograph: Isabel Taylor Pacific Whale Foundation Eco Adventures Australia<\/p>\n But as the threat of the harpoon was progressively removed, the population rebounded. One study based on observations of whales<\/a> suggested that by 2004 the east coast humpbacks numbered 7,800.<\/p>\n It is seen by many conservationists as one of the planet\u2019s great wildlife recovery stories.<\/p>\n By 2015, their numbers had more than trebled to 25,500. Estimates now suggest between 40,000 and 50,000 whales are migrating up and down the coast each year. Some modelling has suggested numbers will peak and plateau this year.<\/p>\n Dunlop and Mayaud both observe that, as populations have increased alongside the rise in popularity of boating and water recreation, the numbers of vessel strikes have also likely increased.<\/p>\n \u2018Humpbacks have been one of the great conservation success stories. But along Australia\u2019s humpback highway, there\u2019s growing risk for them to be hit by vessels,\u2019 says WWF\u2019s Chris Johnson. Photograph: Tracey Harris<\/p>\n
![\"Humpback](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791064809_425_1920.jpg\")
Humpback whale filmed apparently grieving its stillborn calf \u2013 video<\/p>\n