Comeback Species✓✓ 2 independent sources
Blue whales return to South Georgia's killing grounds
42,698 blue whales killed at South Georgia, 1904–1971 — and the survivors are finally returning
After being near-extirpated by early 20th-century industrial whaling, blue whales were seldom seen around South Georgia for decades. A study in Endangered Species Research compiled 30 years of opportunistic sightings, systematic visual surveys and acoustic monitoring to show the whales have resumed feeding there, evidence the British Antarctic Survey called crucial to tracking the species' recovery.
Whalers killed 42,698 blue whales at South Georgia between 1904 and 1971 — then the giants all but vanished from those waters. Thirty years of sightings, photos and underwater sound data now confirm they're back.