Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) and calf near Victoria, Australia. (Photo: DEPI/Mandy Watson via Flickr)
This week, whale watchers went bananas over sightings of about 250 northern right whales in the plankton-rich waters around Cape Cod. The pods represented half of the total population of these critically endangered cetaceans, one of the world’s rarest animals. Now, in the first assessment since the end of the 19th century whaling era, the British Antarctic Survey and other institutions found that southern right whales’ recovery to pre-whaling levels will likely take decades.
The scientists, reporting in Royal Society Open Science this week, used data from old whaling-ship logbooks and computer modeling to compare the past and current population numbers. Continue reading
