FOR KIDS: Whale of a lesson

Once given up as all but extinct, the North Atlantic right whale is making a comeback

Once given up as all but extinct, the North Atlantic right whale is making a comeback

By Eric Wagner

Web edition: March 7, 2013

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A North Atlantic right whale lifts its tail to dive in the Bay of Fundy.

Credit: Eric Wagner

There used to be more North Atlantic right whales centuries ago. No one knows how much the current population must grow before scientists will consider its size healthy. Biologists had assumed that at some point in the past, many thousands of these animals had roamed the Atlantic and that whaling had killed off most of them.

But findings suggest that right whales may always have been rare, at least throughout the past few centuries.

Visit the new?Science News for Kids?website?and read the full story:?Whale of a lesson

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348829/title/FOR_KIDS_Whale_of_a_lesson

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