Comeback Species✓✓ 2 independent sources
Australia's humpback whales: whaled to near-extinction, then delisted
>63% of pre-whaling abundance recovered by 2012; delisted February 2022
Commercial whaling had hunted Australia's east-coast humpback population to near-extirpation by the early 1960s. Long-term surveys documented rapid, sustained growth thereafter — the population exceeded 63% of pre-whaling abundance by 2012 — and in February 2022 the government's independent scientific committee removed humpbacks from Australia's threatened-species list.
From near-extirpation by 1960s industrial whaling to tens of thousands today: east Australian humpbacks recovered so dramatically that in February 2022 they became the first whale struck off Australia's threatened-species list.