Starving whales point to depleted oceans

Starvation may be impeding the recovery of the Pacific Gray whale population, say researchers.

The Gray whale population was thought to have recovered from commercial whaling, but now a new genetic study suggests the marine mammals once numbered between three and five times the 22,000 population estimated today.

If true, the findings could imply that the world’s oceans are no longer able to support the same number of whales that they once could, says Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University in California, US, who led the study.

Previously, it had been thought that thin, starving whales