Humpback whales are world travelers. Every year, humpback whale populations migrate from cooler feeding grounds to warmer breeding grounds. The warm, tropical climate is perfect for mating and giving birth. Each humpback whale population has its own migration route, and those who travel from Antarctica to northern South America have the longest migration of any mammal alive!

Unfortunately, their extensive travels expose humpback whales to a wide variety of threats. Because of their large size and slow speed, they used to be a favorite of the whaling industry and were almost driven extinct in the mid-1900s. Commercial whaling bans allowed humpback whale populations to recover, but they still struggle with pollution, vessel strikes and entanglement in marine debris. Also, because they rely on noise to communicate (remember their famous songs?), increased noise from human activity such as drilling and increasing vessel traffic can disrupt foraging, masking the sounds they use to communicate and locate prey. Accounting for their migration routes when planning shipping routes, offshore wind and other ocean uses could go a long way to ensuring humpback whales make it to their destination safely.