Good news and bad news in the same article.
The humpback population roaming the North Pacific, estimated at about 10,000, is believed to have been growing at annual rate of about 7 percent since the mid-1990s. And as more whales swim to Hawaii from icy feeding grounds off Alaska, Canada, Russia and Japan, boaters are navigating around some 1,000 calves born in Hawaiian waters each year.
“As long as the population continues to get bigger, it’s going to keep happening,” said Joseph Mobley, a professor at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu who researches whales.