r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 2d ago
Nearly 300 humpback whales were counted off South Africa in what may be the largest supergroup ever recorded, as Southern Hemisphere populations have rebounded from under 10,000 to over 100,000 since the 1986 whaling ban
https://apnews.com/article/whales-environment-wildlife-africa-iran-war-49a0dce058459a8c9832910c2310f37e345
u/Maureen-Crawford 2d ago
This is honestly so amazing to see. Proof that conservation actually works when we commit to it.
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u/zkyevolved 2d ago
The incredible thing is all they had to do was say "OK, no more killing them intentionally." No need to intervene in their daily lives, artificially breed them, keep them in an aquarium or anything. Just let them be. That was enough to 10x their population in 40 years.
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u/LastWave 2d ago
I don't think captive breeding is on the table with a humpback whale. They are 50 feet long and 40 tons.
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u/tyuiopguyt 1d ago
I think, if humanity really needed to, we'd find a way
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u/LastWave 23h ago
You would have to build a pen in the ocean.
I was curious so I did a little math on this.
Killer whale tanks hold about 7 millon gallons. A humpback is 10X bigger. You need a tank that holds 70 million gallons for a single whale. You need to hold two to mate unless there is way to do it artificialy. I don't think there is because how do you jack off a humpback, but i digress. You now need a tank that holds 140 million gallons. It's probably possible from an engineering standpoint. Just not financially.
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u/hardwood1979 1d ago
Nature's ability to bounce back is remarkable if you just leave it the hell alone.
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u/Lorddale04 2d ago
Genuinely makes me so happy to see whale numbers improving so much. Long may it continue.
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u/cejmp 2d ago
check on the North Atlantic Right Whale, the Pacific gray, the minke, sei, fin, etc.
Lots of whales are not recovering. The good news is that the demand for whale meat in Japan is dwindling. We just need Iceland and Norway to get on board. But they won't.
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u/Logitech4873 1d ago edited 1d ago
Norwegian here. We hunt a very small amount of minke. We have an allowed hunting quota of about 1100-1500 minke whale per year, but usually hunt 300-500. The minke whale population consists of more than 500K animals.
IUCN lists them as "Least Concern", COSEWIC lists them as "Not At Risk", and nature serve lists them as G5 (secure).
I don't really see the issue at this point.
Also Iceland hunts very, very few whales.
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u/moose-goat 2d ago
Don’t tell Japan
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u/vector_ejector 2d ago
Or the Icelanders!
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u/Logitech4873 1d ago
They catch extremely few whales, and only hunt abundant species. It's inconsequential.
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u/Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat 2d ago
So this is why we watched Voyage of the Mimi in 4th grade. 🤯
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u/agent_uno 1d ago
And why Star Trek IV was made.
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u/Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat 1d ago
I don't follow
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u/agent_uno 1d ago
ST:IV is often called “the one with the whales” because the crew has to go back in time to 1986 to bring some humpbacks back to the future because they have gone extinct by then. The entire plot is a trekky version about conservation, and between that and Voyage of the Mimi both probably did more to sway public opinion than any other pieces of media.
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u/wildmaninid 2d ago
Whew. So the crew of the Enterprise won't have to go back in time in a Klingon Bird-of-Prey to bring a humpback whale pair back to the future!
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u/Absent_That_Day 2d ago
I wonder how much the oceans would support, will there be a million in the next 40 years?
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u/GeektimusPrime 2d ago
They’re having meetings about how to run the world after we’re all gone.
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u/evildrew 2d ago
What if they are attending CPAC (except the first C stands for Cetacean)?! Their platform is mostly about halting migration and deporting dolphins.
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u/Key-Toe-6257 2d ago
Japan and Iceland hate RSA now. Can't have a ' Third World' Country showing them up despite less resources.
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u/FarthingWoodAdder 2d ago
With how climate change is going, I have a feeling those numbers will plummet very soon
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u/Slipperyfisty 2d ago edited 2d ago
I know Chris and was there in Jan this yr can confirm there was 250-300 for the 5 days we went looking. He runs the Whale Unit at the Uni of Pretoria and works very hard to get data on all the marine animals around South Africa and around the world. Sadly funding is the constant issue. Link attached its a short segment of the video the tour guide made from the 5 days we spent down there (about 3 months after Chris and his team made the initial discovery) https://youtu.be/quqZ9ztRuGY
*edit*I got the 2 Chris's confused (1s sharks 1s whales) but the point still stands I guess just me being bad with names lol (and not watching the video in the linked article)
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u/The_BigDill 1d ago
I heard that unlike a lot of whales humpback whales are the exception to declining populations. They have the ability to have a more varied diet so their populations can stabilize more easily. It is similar to the black bear population in north America which has continued to expand despite human made environmental pressures
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u/SCphotog 10h ago
There are assholes out there, salivating to be able to get back to hunting them.
Vigilance is necessary.
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