It had become rare since whaling was banned in 1976. More than a hundred fin whales were filmed by the BBC in Antarctica, which delighted scientists on Thursday.
Their numbers have been reduced "to one or two percent of the size of their original population," Helena Herr, a marine mammal scientist, told AFP.
These animals were killed for the oil contained in their body fat.
Footage filmed by a drone shows up to 150 of these whales darting through the water, blowing large plumes of air at the surface, while birds circle in the sky.
“The water around us was bubbling.
The animals kept coming up and causing splashes,” says Helena Herr.
It was moving, to stand there and watch that.
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It is above all a sign of hope for the second largest animal in the world, after the blue whales, considered an "ecosystem engineer" according to her.
A good index confirmed by scientists who see this increase in the number of whales as a symbol of the good health of the oceans as well as efforts to fight against climate change.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has also classified the fin whale in the category of “vulnerable” species.
A few thousand remaining in the southern hemisphere
In the Southern Hemisphere, scientists say the number of southern fin whales has been slowly rebounding since that ban on whaling in 1976, but few of these animals have been seen in large groups in their historic feeding grounds.
“We are talking about a few thousand animals remaining for the entire southern hemisphere zone” regrets Helena Herr.
A cetacean of about ten meters, probably a whale, was seen last Thursday in the Seine, in Seine-Maritime.
Researchers are now planning other missions to investigate the lingering mysteries around these ocean giants, including their breeding grounds.