Chile: Blue Whale population discovered

(Thanks for the tip-off Robert)

A century of commercial whaling almost pushed the blue whale to extinction. The slaughter peaked in 1931, when 29,000 were killed in one season. By the time hunting blue whales was outlawed in 1966 it is estimated that the population had been reduced by 99 percent, from perhaps half a million to just a few thousand in all the world’s oceans.

In 1997, a group of scientists boarded two ships to comb the 2,500 miles of Chile’s pacific coastline and do a count of blue whales. In that entire time, they found just 40 whales. But then a small group of those scientists decided to soak up the stunning scenery. They hopped on a cruise ship to enjoy the trip home. That ship passed through the Gulf of Corcovado.

When they were entering the gulf, they started seeing blue whales and they saw another one, and then they finally saw 60 in less than four hours.

It seems that scientists have stumbled on a large and unknown population of blue whales, but it wasn’t easy to confirm their findings taking six years to raise the money to come back the Gulf to confirm that what they saw in 1997 wasn’t just a one-time occurrence. Each year since 2003 the scientists have been in Corcovado from January to April (the Southern Summer) and so have the whales. They have learned that the whales come to this vast Gulf to feed and nurse their young. Corcovado is a previously unknown refuge that may help save the species.

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