Since whaling was banned in 1986, whale numbers have rebounded but threats, mostly human-made, remain and are on the agenda at a meeting in Hobart.

Hobart will host the International Whaling Commission this week.

The 2026 meeting will consider a 25-year push to establish a whale protection zone.

Climate change, ongoing human activity, and krill fishing in Antarctica remain challenges, despite a rebound in whale numbers since 1986.

Other threats to whales not envisaged eight decades ago, but still caused by humans include

"Fisheries bycatch, ship-strike, entanglement in nets and noise pollution and some of these threatening processes weren’t really known about or recognised then,

The Hobart meeting will consider a 25-year push led by South and Central American nations to set up a protection zone called the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.