Humpback whale populations have recovered dramatically from commercial whaling, providing both a conservation success story and an opportunity to study whale welfare in recovering populations.
Recovered humpback whale populations face a new welfare era: no longer primarily threatened by hunting, they are affected by entanglement, vessel strike, acoustic pollution, and prey shift. Individual humpbacks that survive entanglement carry wounds and gear that impair feeding and swimming for extended periods. Monitoring individual welfare in recovered populations provides a window into the threats facing these remarkable animals.