After a century of being hunted to near extinction, the population of California's great blue whale, also known as the North Pacific blue whale, is recovering quite nicely, says a study in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
The study was conducted by Cole Monnahan, student at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Blue whales tend to feed 20-30 miles off the coast and come up from anywhere in the Eastern Pacific, down at the equator, and all the way up to the Gulf of Alaska.
Currently it’s estimated that the population off the Californian coast is approximately 2,200 whales. That would put their numbers at around 97 percent of where they were when they were most pursued back in 1905. It wasn’t until the 1980s that commercial whaling was officially banned worldwide, although it is permitted in a few countries.
