Reply to the comment by Romero and Kannada on “Genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones prompts a revision of the impact of Basque whaling on right and bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic”

The comment by Romero and Kannada is presented as a critique of our previous work and suggests that our conclusions are in direct conflict with the historic whaling information reviewed in their paper. However, the critique is based on a misinterpretation of the geographical, temporal, and taxonomic focus of our previous work. The source of the putative conflict appears to stem from the misinterpretation that our results, focused solely on the impact of Basque whaling in the 16th and 17th centuries on the western North Atlantic right whale, were intended to be representative of all whaling of both right and bowhead whales throughout the North Atlantic. To demonstrate this, we briefly review our original results and conclusions and show that the information reviewed by Romero and Kannada does not challenge any aspect of our original work. As such, their comment is not a critique of our paper, but rather a brief review of the history of whaling in the North Atlantic.

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Second reply to the comment by Romero and Kannada on “Genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones prompts a revision of the impact of Basque whaling on right and bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic”Appears in Can. J. Zool. 84(7): 1059–1065.

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z07-118 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 76-79 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jeff W. Higdon

Keyword(s):

Genetic Analysis ◽

North Atlantic ◽

16Th Century ◽

Bowhead Whales ◽

Potential Value ◽

The North ◽

The Pacific ◽

History Of ◽

The North Atlantic ◽

The Impact

The comments by A. Romero and S. Kannada (2006. Can. J. Zool. 84: 1059–1065) provide a brief summary of North Atlantic whaling history as a critique of T. Rastogi et al. (2004. Can. J. Zool. 82: 1647–1654) . However, they fall far short of providing an accurate review of whaling history in this region. The authors present a number of factual errors, misuse several key sources, and make significant omissions, ultimately defeating the purpose of providing information to biologists, managers, and historians. In this comment I highlight the mistakes in their representation of the history of North Atlantic whaling for bowhead whales ( Balaena mysticetus L., 1758). There are unacceptable errors for most nations covered, and for American whaling in particular. The authors assert that over 30 000 bowhead whales were landed by Yankee whalers in the North Atlantic when the vast majority were in fact taken on the Pacific grounds. Although a summary of whaling history is an admirable goal and of potential value, it is unfortunate that the authors missed such an opportunity by failing to adequately research this topic, failing to include important citations, and by including sources that do not provide the information indicated. Providing a whaling summary with such errors and omissions only adds further confusion to an already confusing theme.

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Genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones prompts a revision of the impact of Basque whaling on right and bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z04-146 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 82 (10) ◽

pp. 1647-1654 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Toolika Rastogi ◽

Moira W Brown ◽

Brenna A McLeod ◽

Timothy R Frasier ◽

Robert Grenier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Genetic Analysis ◽

North Atlantic ◽

North Atlantic Right Whale ◽

Bowhead Whales ◽

Right Whale ◽

The North ◽

Dramatic Decline ◽

Right Whales ◽

The North Atlantic ◽

The Impact

The North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis (Müller, 1776), is one of the world's most endangered large cetaceans. It is widely believed that Basque whalers caused the most dramatic decline of this species in the western North Atlantic during the early-16th and 17th centuries. Previous osteological analysis of 17 historic bones suggested that 50% of the Basque harvest consisted of right whales and 50% of bowhead whales, Balaena mysticetus L., 1758. This 50:50 ratio has been used to estimate pre-exploitation population size, which has subsequently formed the basis of recovery goals and plans for the North Atlantic right whale. Genetic analysis of 21 bones, 13 identified as right whales and 8 as bowhead whales through osteological examination, indicates that in fact only 1 bone was a right whale and 20 were bowhead whales. Additionally, preliminary microsatellite analyses of this specimen are not consistent with the hypothesis that whaling resulted in the low genetic variation found in this species today. These results differ from what would be expected based on any previous view of Basque whaling, and raise questions regarding the impact of Basque whaling on this species.

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Comment on “Genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones prompts a revision of the impact of Basque whaling on right and bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic”

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z06-085 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 84 (7) ◽

pp. 1059-1065 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Aldemaro Romero ◽

Shelly Kannada

Keyword(s):

Genetic Analysis ◽

North Atlantic ◽

Small Sample ◽

Bowhead Whale ◽

16Th Century ◽

Bowhead Whales ◽

The North ◽

The North Atlantic ◽

Red Bay ◽

The Impact

Rastogi et al. presented their genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones found on a Basque whaling ship excavated from Red Bay, Labrador Peninsula, Canada. Based on the results from a very small sample, these authors concluded that whaling populations were already depleted before the onset of whaling. This is in direct contradiction to historical data. They also implied that the Basques were the only Europeans whaling in the North Atlantic before the onset of Yankee whaling and that there was a belief that Basque whalers historically killed equal numbers of right and bowhead whales. Here we present data based on historical and archaeological records generated by several authors using different methodologies, which clearly show that (i) Basques were not the only whalers that impacted cetacean populations in the North Atlantic; (ii) the number of whales killed by different peoples for approximately two centuries indicates that both right and bowhead whale population levels were much higher than typically assumed; and (iii) for many years there have been records published indicating that the Basques and others killed more bowhead whales than right whales, at least in the western North Atlantic.

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Bowhead whales, and not right whales, were the primary target of 16th- to 17th-century Basque Whalers in the Western North Atlantic

ARCTIC ◽

10.14430/arctic7 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 61 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

B.A. McLeod ◽

M.W. Brown ◽

M.J. Moore ◽

W. Stevens ◽

S.H. Barkham ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North Atlantic ◽

17Th Century ◽

Bowhead Whale ◽

North Atlantic Right Whale ◽

Bowhead Whales ◽

Right Whale ◽

The North ◽

Mitochondrial Cytochrome B ◽

Comprehensive Search ◽

The North Atlantic

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Basque whalers travelled annually to the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence to hunt whales. The hunting that occurred during this period is of primary significance for the North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis (Müller, 1776), because it has been interpreted as the largest human-induced reduction of the western North Atlantic population, with ~12250–21 000 whales killed. It has been frequently reported that the Basques targeted two species in this region: the North Atlantic right whale and the bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus L., 1758. To evaluate this hypothesis and the relative impact of this period of whaling on both species, we collected samples from 364 whale bones during a comprehensive search of Basque whaling ports from the 16th to the 17th century in the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence. Bones were found and sampled at 10 of the 20 sites investigated. DNA was extracted from a subset (n = 218) of these samples. Analysis of the mitochondrial cytochrome b region identified five whale species. The identification of only a single right whale bone and 203 bowhead whale bones from at least 72 individuals indicates that the bowhead whale was likely the principal target of the hunt. These results imply that this whaling had a much greater impact (in terms of numbers of whales removed) on the bowhead whale population than on the western North Atlantic right whale population.

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Comment on the second reply by Higdon to the comment by Romero and Kannada on “Genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones prompts a revision of the impact of Basque whaling on right and bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic”Appears in Can. J. Zool. 86(1): 76–79.

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z07-119 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 80-82

Author(s):

Aldemaro Romero ◽

Shelly Kannada

Keyword(s):

Genetic Analysis ◽

North Atlantic ◽

Anthropogenic Impacts ◽

Historical Review ◽

16Th Century ◽

Bowhead Whales ◽

The North ◽

The World ◽

The North Atlantic ◽

The Impact

The second reply by J.W. Higdon (2008. Can. J. Zool. 86: 76–79) criticizes a previously published comment by us of T. Rastogi et al.’s (2004. Can. J. Zool. 82: 1647–1654) paper saying that we presented factual errors, misused key sources, and made a number of omissions. The main objective of our original comment was to show that there had been many other peoples and nations besides the Basques who were engaged in whaling in the North Atlantic for many centuries and, therefore, the Basques could not have been solely responsible for anthropogenic impacts on the populations of large whales in that part of the world. To that end we only sampled some sources to make our point. In this rebuttal, we show that Higdon mischaracterizes our comment as a historical review and that neither he nor B.A. McLeod et al. (2006. Can. J. Zool. 84: 1066–1069) provide any evidence that challenges our fundamental conclusions.

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