Beneath the sombre headlines were stories of hope and optimism bound to have even the most pessimistic among us struggling to stifle a smile.
A population of humpback whales off the coast of South America and Antarctica has bounced back from near-extinction in an example of the powerful impact of conservation measures.
Hundreds of thousands of humpback whales were killed worldwide between the late 1700s and mid-1900s, and before they were placed under protection in the 1970s, fewer than 500 were left. But a new assessment, published in the Royal Society journal Open Science in October, estimates the population is now at 93 per cent of its pre-exploitation levels."If you stop killing whales, they will survive. They will reproduce, and they'll come back. And I think this is a clear example of that."
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