ArticleRoyal Society open science2024
Bellwethers of change: population modelling of North Pacific humpback whales from 2002 through 2021 reveals shift from recovery to climate response.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Marine heatwaves suppress nutrient utilization and reproductive flexibility in humpback whales.iScience · 2026Article
- Humpback Whales (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- Article
- Hemisphere-Level Comparison of Climate-Driven Humpback Whale Breeding Migrations to the Eastern Pacific Off Costa Rica.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Climate-driven reproductive decline in Southern right whales.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Energetic benefits of resting behaviour in humpback whale mother-calf pairs revealed by biologging and UAS-photogrammetry.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Biodiversity conservation depends on the expansion of taxonomy and systematics research.Journal of mammalogy · 2025Article
- The future of baleen whales: Recoveries, environmental constraints, and climate change.Science advances · 2025Review
- Humpback whale song complexity and evolution on a northwestern Pacific breeding ground: Okinawa, Japan.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Application of DNA Methylation-Based Age Estimation to Construct an Age Structure of Humpback Whales in a Newly Emerged Wintering Ground Around Hachijojima Island, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Tending the sick: Observations of epimeletic behavior in humpback whales towards conspecifics during entanglement events.PloS one · 2025Article
- Tales of a migratory marine biologist.Nature · 2024Article
- Bellwethers of change: population modelling of North Pacific humpback whales from 2002 through 2021 reveals shift from recovery to climate response.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
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74 authors.
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Abstract
For the 40 years after the end of commercial whaling in 1976, humpback whale populations in the North Pacific Ocean exhibited a prolonged period of recovery. Using mark-recapture methods on the largest individual photo-identification dataset ever assembled for a cetacean, we estimated annual ocean-basin-wide abundance for the species from 2002 through 2021. Trends in annual estimates describe strong post-whaling era population recovery from 16 875 (± 5955) in 2002 to a peak abundance estimate of 33 488 (± 4455) in 2012. An apparent 20% decline from 2012 to 2021, 33 488 (± 4455) to 26 662 (± 4192), suggests the population abruptly reached carrying capacity due to loss of prey resources. This was particularly evident for humpback whales wintering in Hawai'i, where, by 2021, estimated abundance had declined by 34% from a peak in 2013, down to abundance levels previously seen in 2006, and contrasted to an absence of decline in Mainland Mexico breeding humpbacks. The strongest marine heatwave recorded globally to date during the 2014-2016 period appeared to have altered the course of species recovery, with enduring effects. Extending this time series will allow humpback whales to serve as an indicator species for the ecosystem in the face of a changing climate.
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