Oceania humpback whale recovery plan discussion paper [presented at] Second meeting of the signatories, Auckland, New Zealand, 26-29 July 2009

Abstract

In 2008, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reviewed the conservation status of cetacean populations worldwide. As a consequence of this review, the Oceania population of humpback whales has been re-classified from Threatened to Endangered. This is in recognition that, although humpback whales in many parts of the world are showing encouraging signs of recovery from whaling, most of the small breeding populations in the South Pacific remain at extremely low levels and some remain vulnerable to extinction. The Oceania region encompassed over 9,008,458 km² of ocean, 14 countries and 16 territories spread over both the South and North Pacific Oceans. However, for the purposed of this plan, the planning boundaries are proposed to be delineated by the known breeding range of the Southern Hemisphere humpback whale breading stocks which were reclassified to Endnagered recently by the IUCN (that is Breeding StocksE(ii & iii) and F (i & ii)) and cover the Exclusive Economic Zones which fall within this boundary.