Researchers from the University of Washington, U.S. have released a new study claiming the Blue Whale population is at around 97 percent of where they used to be before becoming endangered.
Research shows that their numbers are back to where they were before humans started hunting the species, and it now resides around 2,200 whales.
"The recovery of California blue whales from whaling demonstrates the ability of blue whale populations to rebuild under careful management and conservation measures," said Cole Monnahan, a UW doctoral student in quantitative ecology and resource management, according to a University of Washington press release.
New data released by Monnahan, Trevor Branch, UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, and other co-authors of the study published in PLOS One, said that 3,400 California blue whales were captured between 1905 and 1971.
"Considering the 3,400 caught in comparison to the 346,000 caught near Antarctica gives an idea how much smaller the population of California blue whales was likely to have been," Branch said.
To find out why the blue whale population stopped growing over the past 20 years Monnahan used deep sea recordings of their calls to figure out how many California whales are around today.
He then plugged that figure into an equation along with other data, like the number of captured whales due to whaling in the past, and the number of ship strikes taking place.
Annual fatal ship strikes only have a minimal impact even when they occur in numbers above legal limits, according to the release. There are at least 11 blue whales struck a year along the U.S. West Coast, which is above the "potential biological removal" of 3.1 whales per year allowed by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.
"Even accepting our results that the current level of ship strikes is not going to cause overall population declines, there is still going to be ongoing concern that we don't want these whales killed by ships," Branch said.
The study shows that whales are back at a level that the ecosystem can naturally carry. Even so, Monnahan believes it is important that protections for the endangered species remain intact.
"California blue whales are recovering because we took actions to stop catches and start monitoring," said Monnahan. "If we hadn't, the population might have been pushed to near extinction - an unfortunate fate suffered by other blue whale populations."
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