Although they are massive animals, the population of whales are difficult to monitor. Drones have been used to capture footage of whales, and now scientists are turning to even satellites. Researchers in Australia are using satellite imagery to track local humpback whale populations.

According to Live Science, Humpback whales were considered an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. However, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service lifted the whales' endangered status last year as a result of successful conservation efforts.

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Despite this success, the migratory whales are difficult to track, and many population estimates are largely speculative, according to Curt Jenner, managing director of the Centre for Whale Research in Western Australia.

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"People say, 'The whale numbers are very healthy, aren't they?' Well, we can't actually honestly say yes to that, we don't know because we haven't had a monitoring program for this largest humpback population on the planet for about 10 years," Jenner told ABC News of humpbacks in Western Australia. "So we're very interested to find out if this very large number of whales can be sustained and whether it is healthy enough to continue in into the future."

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The researchers said they would use two satellite images, taken from 373 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth, to conduct a head count of humpback whales as they migrate up the Western Australian coast.