CANBERRA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Southern right whale numbers are rising along the Australian coast, signaling hope amid ongoing conservation challenges.
Scientists celebrate a strong southern right whale season in South Australia (SA), with nearly 200 whales recorded this week across key coastal sites, the highest since 2016, according to a statement released Friday by Flinders University in SA.
Despite a harmful algal bloom, scientists hail this year's South Australian whale season as a beacon for marine conservation, it said.
"With early sightings already reported at Head of Bight, Fowlers Bay and Encounter Bay, we are eagerly anticipating a bumper year after recent years of slower growth," said Flinders University researcher Claire Charlton.
Researchers said the resurgence highlighted 30 years of marine protection in the Great Australian Bight, a vast open bay extending along the southern coast of mainland Australia, but concerns remain over slowing growth and reproductive decline.
Charlton, chief scientist of the Australian Right Whale Research Program, said the research, now in its 35th year, tracks whale distribution, abundance, life histories, health and behavior to inform national conservation strategies.
Southern right whales migrate to Australia's southern coastline between May and October for calving, nursing, mating and migrating, researchers said.
Whale numbers at SA's Fowlers Bay, one of the world's fastest-growing southern right populations, rise rapidly, but overall regional growth and calving have declined over the past decade, said Charlton, the study's co-author.
Aerial surveys estimate 2,346 to 3,940 whales remain, 16 percent to 26 percent of pre-whaling levels, with calf numbers down since 2016, according to the study published in Marine Mammal Science.
"Changes in available food sources seem to combine with coastal development and habitat disturbances, including vessel strike, noise disturbance and fishing equipment entanglement as major threats to recovery," said co-author, Flinders University Associate Professor Luciana Moller. ■
