Blue whales 'making a comeback'

[Barrett808]

Source: BBC

Blue whales 'making a comeback'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Anchorage, Alaska

The blue whale, possibly the largest animal ever to live on Earth, is making a comeback, scientists have said.

Data shows that the population of marine mammal in the Southern Hemisphere have increased from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Before the commercial hunting era, there would have been hundreds of thousands in the oceans.

The findings were presented at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting.

Numbers of other large species such as fin whales and humpbacks are also rising in many parts of the world.

"The most recent data is really encouraging," said the IWC's head of science Greg Donovan.

"Blue whales have now been increasing by about 7-8% per year for the last 10 years at least, for which we have good data. The abundance is still very low, it's about 2,300 for the whole southern hemisphere so it's a tiny fraction of what it used to be, but it's good news they're increasing."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6710051.stm

[Thor_MN]

1. Does whale dung float or sink?

I have to think that whales tend to be a net exporter of carbon from the surface to the deep ocean. If nothing else, just the bodies of whatever percentage of hundreds of thousands of blue whales used to naturally die each year would be moving thousands of tons of carbon to the deep ocean. We are cutting down the forests, pulling as much biomass out of the ocean, as much oil and coal out of the ground as we can... And some people still think that CO2 levels may be increasing due to natural flucuations...

[Ian David]

2. Can't wait for the headline, "Sperm Whales Making a Comeback!" n/t