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

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.