Big groups of humpbacks reported “Photo”

It seems there’s finally good news for the humpback whale. An unprecedented number of them have been spotted off the Pacific Northwest after fears the whale was reaching dangerously low numbers blamed on commercial hunting.

Once nearly wiped out by commercial whaling, the humpbacks are making a comeback – and it’s not just two or three whales in any one spot, but large groups of up to 15 or 20 together.

“It’s humpback heaven out there right now,” said Michael Harris, executive director of Pacific Whale Watch Association, a trade group that represents 38 tour operators in Washington and B.C. “About 20 years ago or so, we never saw humpback whales out there. The last three or four years, our crews started to see them all the time.”

Each spring, humpbacks migrate from Hawaii, Mexico and Central America to Alaska. Once hunted out by commercial whalers, humpbacks continue to resurface in this region, increasingly taking an inside passage through waterways as they head north in the spring, and then south in the fall. But once in the Salish Sea, they often make an extended stay before rejoining the migration.

Rhonda Reidy, a naturalist, marine educator and captain for Prince of Whales Whale Watching in Victoria, B.C., said the recent boom in humpbacks here may be the result of overlapping events.

Agencies/Canadajournal