Some good news from Chile, where the International Whaling Commission meeting is due to happen in June. There's been strong campaigning going on at a national level to turn Chile's waters into a whale sanctuary - and if this report is anything to go by, it's a damn good idea:

"... 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium went into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fiords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline. In recent years, researchers combing remote crannies of this elongated coast have confirmed the presence of two seasonally resident populations of whales, including 100 to 150 humpbacks here in the glacier-rimmed Strait of Magellan."

"Farther to the north, closer to the seas once frequented by Mocha Dick, they've tracked several hundred blue whales, believed to be Earth's largest animal, at 100 feet long and more than 100 tons -- bigger than any dinosaur. A separate population of blue whales feeds off the central California coast between June and October."

It's worth reading the whole article, which is quite in-depth, in the LA Times:
Whale sightings off Chile raise hope for the endangered animals »