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Southern Whale Rebounds From Near Extinction August 28, 2009
Southern right whale and calf
A southern right whale calf with its mother off the coast of Tasmania during early August. It was the first evidence of the species giving birth in the Australian state's coastal waters for more than a century.
A species of whale once hunted to the point that only a few dozen breeding females remained has returned to the inshore waters of Tasmania to give birth for the first time in well over 100 years.

A mother southern right whale and her just-born calf were photographed in the shallow waters of Great Oyster Bay in early August.

The calf was observed resting on her mother’s back, and swimming close beside her.

“We've had reliable reports of cow-calf pairs in recent years, but this time we have nailed the proof,” said David Pemberton, a wildlife biologist with the Tasmanian government.

About 1,000 southern rights were hunted around Tasmania each year during the early 1800s, leading to them becoming commercially extinct by 1842.

According to the International Whaling Commission, the right whale was so thoroughly hunted that only 60 breeding females were left by 1920 out of an estimated original population of 160,000.

The species received its name because whalers thought them the “right” whale to hunt because they were easy targets due to their slow movement near shore and their tendency to float after being killed.

They are also rich in whale oil, once used in lamps, candles and even early version of margarine before other products made its use obsolete.

Southern right whales had earlier been seen migrating from Antarctic waters to northern and southwestern Australia in order to breed. But the sighting in Tasmania is the first evidence that the whales have also managed to reestablish migration routes back to the southeast of the country in order to give birth.

Pemberton says approximately 1,500 right whales now migrate to Australia each year out of the estimated global population of 60,000.

Photo: Tasmanian Dept. of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment