Australia's humpback populations rebound, raising hopes of marine scientists
July marks the peak of the humpback whale's 6,000-mile migration north to Queensland, Australia's warmer waters, where they mate and give birth.We think we have more whales in the population than we did pre-whaling," professor Mike Noad, director of the Centre for Marine Science at the University of Queensland, told ABC News.The bloody story of how Australia's humpbacks reached near extinction only came to light with the fall of the Soviet Union, in part thanks to the work of husband-and-wife marine biologists Philip Clapham and Yulia Ivashchenko. Starting in 1948, the USSR ignored restrictions implemented by the International Whaling Commission and conducted a 30-year campaign of illegal whaling in the rich feeding grounds of the Antarctic, Clapham told ABC News from their home on Vashon Island, Washington state."They were doing this completely in secret," he added.They were submitting falsified catch data to the International Whaling Commission but keeping ...