‘Extraordinary longevity’: great whales can live a lot longer than we thought – if we leave them alone

‘Extraordinary longevity’: great whales can live a lot longer than we thought – if we leave them alone

In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville’s epic novel of 1851, the author asks if whales would survive the remorseless human hunt. Yes, he says, as he foresees a future flooded world in which the whale would outlive us and “spout his frothed defiance to the skies”. Moby Dick was a grizzled old sperm whale that had miraculously […]

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One in 10 southern right whales alive in 1893 could have still been swimming today, study finds

One in 10 southern right whales alive in 1893 could have still been swimming today, study finds

In 1893, the World’s Fair was getting under way in Chicago, the world’s first number plates appeared on cars in Paris, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination would later spark the first world war, spent time hunting kangaroos and emus in the NSW town of Narromine. Also, according to researchers, up to 10% of southern […]

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The Right Stuff…

The Right Stuff…

The Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) has made a strong recovery since it’s initial protection from hunting in 1935. The population dropped sharply in the 1960s due to heavy illegal poaching (wiping out nearly half of its remaining numbers) but since that was stopped the population has exhibited a healthy upward trend. From an estimated […]

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