After being hunted almost to extinction and driven from ancestral calving grounds, southern right whales are returning to New Zealand, researchers say.

Researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Auckland say that whales from a small surviving population around remote, sub-Antarctic islands have found their way back to the New Zealand mainland.

As many as 30,000 of the whales once migrated each winter to New Zealand's many sandy, well-protected bays to give birth and raise calves before 19th-century whaling decimated the species, an Oregon State release said Monday.

Now a handful are finding their way back, scientists said.

"We used DNA profiling to confirm that seven whales are now migrating between the sub-Antarctic islands and mainland New Zealand," Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State, said.

"These are probably just the first pioneers," Baker said. "The protected bays of New Zealand are excellent breeding grounds and I suspect that we may soon see a pulse of new whales following the pioneers, to colonize their former habitat."

Adult right whales can grow to 60 feet long and weigh 100 tons, and even calves weigh 1 ton, researchers said.

Right whales are thought to live for 70 years or more.

"The right whale is remarkably graceful, very spectacular to watch," Baker said. "There used to be thousands of them in New Zealand and they are now rediscovering their ancestral home. It will be interesting to see what develops."

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