Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

The humpback whale has been moved from “Vulnerable” to “Least Concern” on the 2008 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (press release).

It is estimated that there are 40,000 mature individuals (Australian), and there are good reports for the current breeding season in the Southern hemisphere (News Adelaide). But now, as a former Nature staffer reports, scientists have also found hundreds of baby whales in a bay on the north west of Australia, which is thought to be one of the world’s biggest humpback whale nursery grounds.

“The large whales, the commercially important ones, have for the most part responded well under protection,” Randall Reeves, chair of the cetacean specialist group of the IUCN (Reuters).

The southern right whale is also now listed as having a low risk of extinction. Several other whales, such as the blue and sei whales, are also growing in number, but are still listed as “Endangered”.

In all, nearly a quarter of the 86 cetacean species assessed, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, are considered threatened, with nine species listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered. This is most likely underestimating the situation as there is not enough data to classify 44 of the species (Telegraph).

“The trouble is that the nets that cause the most trouble, the entangling nets that are unselective in what they catch, are still being used,” says Dr Reeves (BBC).

Other threats are military sonar, as covered in Nature News Online, and the risk to their food supplies from climate change.

If you are a bit of a whale spotter, why not check out the humpback whale spotters website which has been keeping track of sightings of individual whales for four decades (KVUE). The whale spotters use pictures of the underside of the tail to identify individuals by shape, colour and scarring.

Of course the Japanese government has been threatening to resume hunting humpback whales in the Antarctic for years. Someone should let them know that killing a whale makes the rest of the pod sad (ABC).

Our final whale in the news today is Billy, who has unfortunately ended up in landfill (Daily Telegraph). Residents in Bognor Regis, England, were upset when Billy, a bottlenose whale that was stranded and had to be put down, was sent to the tip. They were hoping that it could be used for science, says the BBC, but at least they were spared this.

Photo: Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory & The Dolphin Institute via IUCN