Humpback whale sightings around New Zealand 1970-1999 ...
Humpback whales were almost taken to extinction by intensive whaling activities during the past century. In Area V, an original population of approximately 10 000 humpbacks at the beginning of the century had been reduced to less than 5%, or estimated 250-500 whales of the original population(Chittl...
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
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Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node
2019
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.15468/44sxul https://www.gbif.org/dataset/7d122ae7-ef18-42a7-a0d4-bf4540826dbc |
| Summary: | Humpback whales were almost taken to extinction by intensive whaling activities during the past century. In Area V, an original population of approximately 10 000 humpbacks at the beginning of the century had been reduced to less than 5%, or estimated 250-500 whales of the original population(Chittleborough 1965). Humpbacks were given total protection from commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1966 and presently have an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status of Vulnerable (Donoghue 1994). Although protected, subsistence hunting of humpbacks continued in Tonga until 1979 when whaling was prohibited by Royal Decree; and in Antarctica by illegal Russian whaling of approximately 47 000 humpbacks, which continued until the 1980s (Donoghue 1994,Yablokov 1994). While some humpback whale populations have been widely studied, others including the population that migrates along the New Zealand coast are little known since the cessation of commercial whaling. ... |
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