As a child I vividly remember my family huddling together on the Scilly Isles in the lee of the howling wind, whilst my mother read the final pages of Micheal Morpurgo's 'Why the whales came' on the very beach where the story was taking place. I won't slip any spoilers, but this book introduced me to the wonder of whales, and some of the tragedies they face.
Now on a very different corner of the world, whenever I go to the beach I see whales. Each beach trip I strain to see the black curve of a back resting just below the surface, or a far off tell-tale white wisp, and then without fail, 'there she blows!'. Every glimpse of a lounging pectoral fin, and every splash as a fluke disappears beneath the waves is simply amazing.
At this time of year both humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) and southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) are a common sight around Albany, Western Australia. Humpbacks are on their massive 7000-mile migration north from Antarctica to the Kimberley and back, where they give birth in the warm waters, whilst Southern right whales stop a fair bit sooner and give birth right here on the south coast.
In the 1960s things were very different. Whale populations were down from tens of thousands to a few hundred individuals. They were rarely seen from the coast, and if they were then a whaling ship would soon be after them. Global catch data shows roughly 2 million whales were killed in the Southern Hemisphere in the last century. West Australian whaling stations were harvesting between 500 and 3000 whales a year, alongside illegal Soviet whaling, which harvested over 500,000 whales between 1947 and 1973.
This collapse in whale numbers meant the whaling industry also collapsed. This, plus public outcry at the loss of whales led to the rare success story that we see today. International cooperation, explicit legislation and very robust evidence from research and monitoring led to and sustained the international commercial whaling ban that persists today.
Monitoring data is showing massive whale population increases of up to 11% per year, and they are now up to 50-90% of pre-whaling numbers. Humpbacks are even being considered for down-listing from their current threatened status to recovered. All in all the whales of Western Australia are doing pretty well at the moment, when 60 years ago they were on the brink of extinction.
This is a pretty amazing conservation success story, showing that recovery really is possible. It's a source of hope and motivation in the fight to save other endangered species, as well as showing how it is possible: identify and remove the cause of decline, using international cooperation, legislation and evidence.
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