Industrial Whaling Research Articles

A Sealers Midden Provides Evidence a Live Pig (Sus scrofa) was Taken Ashore at Heard Island During the “Elephanting” Industry (1855–1882)

Livestock was often released onto remote Southern Ocean islands as a food source for shipwreck survivors during the industrial whaling and sealing era. Although animals were put ashore at nearby Isles Kerguelen and Crozet, the historical records make no mention of domesticated livestock ever being set ashore at Heard Island between 1855 and 1882. Here we report a pig (Sus scrofa) mandible discovered amongst other bones and artefacts in an ‘elephanters’ midden found at Spit Bay, Heard Island. The find provides very strong evidence a live pig was shipped ashore and eaten as part of the sealers meagre provisions. Archaeological investigations of middens at other sealing locations could produce new insights into the dietary habits of these men.

Bones as biofuel: a review of whale bone composition with implications for deep-sea biology and palaeoanthropology

Whales are unique among vertebrates because of the enormous oil reserves held in their soft tissue and bone. These 'biofuel' stores have been used by humans from prehistoric times to more recent industrial-scale whaling. Deep-sea biologists have now discovered that the oily bones of dead whales on the seabed are also used by specialist and generalist scavenging communities, including many unique organisms recently described as new to science. In the context of both cetacean and deep-sea invertebrate biology, we review scientific knowledge on the oil content of bone from several of the great whale species: Balaenoptera musculus, Balaenoptera physalus, Balaenoptera borealis, Megaptera novaeangliae, Eschrichtius robustus, Physeter macrocephalus and the striped dolphin, Stenella coeruleoalba. We show that data collected by scientists over 50 years ago during the heyday of industrial whaling explain several interesting phenomena with regard to the decay of whale remains. Variations in the lipid content of bones from different parts of a whale correspond closely with recently observed differences in the taphonomy of deep-sea whale carcasses and observed biases in the frequency of whale bones at archaeological sites.

Iron defecation by sperm whales stimulates carbon export in the Southern Ocean

The iron-limited Southern Ocean plays an important role in regulating atmospheric CO(2) levels. Marine mammal respiration has been proposed to decrease the efficiency of the Southern Ocean biological pump by returning photosynthetically fixed carbon to the atmosphere. Here, we show that by consuming prey at depth and defecating iron-rich liquid faeces into the photic zone, sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) instead stimulate new primary production and carbon export to the deep ocean. We estimate that Southern Ocean sperm whales defecate 50 tonnes of iron into the photic zone each year. Molar ratios of C(export):Fe(added) determined during natural ocean fertilization events are used to estimate the amount of carbon exported to the deep ocean in response to the iron defecated by sperm whales. We find that Southern Ocean sperm whales stimulate the export of 4 × 10(5) tonnes of carbon per year to the deep ocean and respire only 2 × 10(5) tonnes of carbon per year. By enhancing new primary production, the populations of 12 000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean act as a carbon sink, removing 2 × 10(5) tonnes more carbon from the atmosphere than they add during respiration. The ability of the Southern Ocean to act as a carbon sink may have been diminished by large-scale removal of sperm whales during industrial whaling.

The Decline of the American Whaling Industry during the Industrial Revolution in the Latter Half of the 19th Century

This study examines the American whaling industry, which was based in New England and dominated most of the Western oil market in the 18th and 19th centuries. Previous studies by the author examined why the industry was attracted to this region, highlighting the favorable economic environment of the area, which allowed investors to accumulate the necessary funds to launch whaling ventures. Each investment consortium that provided funds to whaling vessels organized limited partnerships with individual vessels. This enabled consortiums to collect funds from a variety of stakeholders other than just businessmen involved in whaling and their families. Crewmembers of the vessel, reflecting the multi-racial society of the United States, were also free to select employers without relying on a conventional employer-employee relationship. Taken together, these factors led to New England attracting funds and labor from both within the region and further afield, and developing into the whaling center of the United States. An additional reason for New England's development as a whaling base was the global expansion of the industry to cover the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, with only the Southern Ocean not affected by this growth. Crewmembers were also paid from a ship's profits using the lay system. This payment by piece ratio ensured a minimum payment to crewmembers while guaranteeing a return for investors. The hiring of native islanders as part-time laborers in the whalers' areas of operation also kept expenditure to a minimum, with all of these factors contributing to investors' profits. Against this background, the whaling industry prospered and profited up until the 1850s. In the 1870s, however, the industry started to decline as whale resources decreased and the price of whale oil fell as a result of increased petroleum production. This study examines the details of how whaling voyages were managed during this period and how New England's whaling industry underwent a rapid transformation into a mechanized cotton industry with the owners of whaling vessels switching their investments to the cotton industry at New Bedford, the center of the whaling industry in New England. The rapid change from industrial whaling to the mechanical cotton industry in New England was made possible with the abundant funds accumulated by the whaling industry. The reestablishment of consortiums progressed smoothly as limited partnerships already existed and the labor market adapted efficiently from supplying whaling vessels to supplying female workers for the cotton industry due to the presence of non-conventional employment rules. We can see, therefore, in this region the development from one industry to another was controlled only by market-based mechanisms of American management. This is in sharp contrast to the Japanese fishing industry, which developed from a manufacturing fishery through technological innovation and utilizing community manpower or industrial power as the only motive force under limited investment and labor market conditions.

Causes and consequences of marine mammal population declines in southwest Alaska: a food-web perspective

Populations of sea otters, seals and sea lions have collapsed across much of southwest Alaska over the past several decades. The sea otter decline set off a trophic cascade in which the coastal marine ecosystem underwent a phase shift from kelp forests to deforested sea urchin barrens. This interaction in turn affected the distribution, abundance and productivity of numerous other species. Ecological consequences of the pinniped declines are largely unknown. Increased predation by transient (marine mammal-eating) killer whales probably caused the sea otter declines and may have caused the pinniped declines as well. Springer et al. proposed that killer whales, which purportedly fed extensively on great whales, expanded their diets to include a higher percentage of sea otters and pinnipeds following a sharp reduction in great whale numbers from post World War II industrial whaling. Critics of this hypothesis claim that great whales are not now and probably never were an important nutritional resource for killer whales. We used demographic/energetic analyses to evaluate whether or not a predator-prey system involving killer whales and the smaller marine mammals would be sustainable without some nutritional contribution from the great whales. Our results indicate that while such a system is possible, it could only exist under a narrow range of extreme conditions and is therefore highly unlikely.

Mammal‐eating killer whales, industrial whaling, and the sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: A reply to critics of Springer et al. 2003

Mammal‐eating killer whales, industrial whaling, and the sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: A reply to critics of Springer <i>et al</i>. 2003

Baleen whales are not important as prey for killer whales Orcinus orca in high-latitude regions

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 348:297-307 (2007) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps07015 Baleen whales are not important as prey for killer whales Orcinus orca in high-latitude regions Amee V. Mehta1,*, Judith M. Allen2, Rochelle Constantine3, Claire Garrigue4, Beatrice Jann5, Curt Jenner6, Marilyn K. Marx7, Craig O. Matkin8, David K. Mattila9, Gianna Minton10, Sally A. Mizroch11, Carlos Olavarría12,17, Jooke Robbins13, Kirsty G. Russell3, Rosemary E. Seton2, Gretchen H. Steiger, 14Gísli A. Víkingsson15, Paul R. Wade11, Briana H. Witteveen16, Phillip J. Clapham11,17 1Boston University Marine Program, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA 2Allied Whale, College of the Atlantic, 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609, USA 3School of Biological Sciences, Private Bag 92019, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand 4Opération Cétacés, BP12827, Noumea 98802, New Caledonia 5Swiss Whale Society, Via Nolgio 3, 6900 Massagno, Switzerland 6Centre for Whale Research, PO Box 1622, Fremantle, Western Australia 6959, Australia 7New England Aquarium, Central Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts 02110, USA 8North Gulf Oceanic Society, 3430 Main Street, Suite B1, Homer, Alaska 99603, USA 9Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, 726 South Kihei Road, Kihei, Hawaii 96753, USA 10Oman Whale and Dolphin Research Group, PO Box 81, Muscat, Oman 11National Marine Mammal Lab, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98115, USA 12Centro de Estudios del Cuaternario (CEQUA), Plaza Muñoz Gamero 1055, Punta Arenas, Chile 13Center for Coastal Studies, PO Box 1036, Provincetown, Massachusetts 02657, USA 14Cascadia Research, 218½ W. 4th Avenue, Olympia, Washington 98501, USA 15Marine Research Institute, Skúlagata 4, PO Box 1390, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland 16University of Alaska Fairbanks, 118 Trident Way, Kodiak, Alaska 99615, USA 17South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, Box 3069, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands *Email: ameevm@gmail.com ABSTRACT: Certain populations of killer whales Orcinus orca feed primarily or exclusively on marine mammals. However, whether or not baleen whales represent an important prey source for killer whales is debatable. A hypothesis by Springer et al. (2003) suggested that overexploitation of large whales by industrial whaling forced killer whales to prey-switch from baleen whales to pinnipeds and sea otters, resulting in population declines for these smaller marine mammals in the North Pacific and southern Bering Sea. This prey-switching hypothesis is in part contingent upon the idea that killer whales commonly attack mysticetes while they are in these high-latitude areas. In this study, we used photographic and sighting data from long-term studies of baleen whales in 24 regions worldwide to determine the proportion of whales that bear scars (rake marks) from killer whale attacks, and to examine the timing of scar acquisition. The results of this study show that there is considerable geographic variation in the proportion of whales with rake marks, ranging from 0% to >40% in different regions. In every region, the great majority of the scars seen were present on the whales’ bodies when the animals were first sighted. Less than 7% (9 of 132) of scarred humpback whales with multi-year sighting histories acquired new scars after the first sighting. This suggests that most killer whale attacks on baleen whales target young animals, probably calves on their first migration from low-latitude breeding and calving areas to high-latitude feeding grounds. Overall, our results imply that adult baleen whales are not an important prey source for killer whales in high latitudes, and therefore that one of the primary assumptions underlying the Springer et al. (2003) prey-switching hypothesis (and its purported link to industrial whaling) is invalid. KEY WORDS: Predation · Killer whale · Baleen whale · Scars · North Pacific · Whaling Full text in pdf format PreviousCite this article as: Mehta AV, Allen JM, Constantine R, Garrigue C and others (2007) Baleen whales are not important as prey for killer whales Orcinus orca in high-latitude regions. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 348:297-307. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps07015Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 348. Online publication date: October 25, 2007 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2007 Inter-Research.

KILLER WHALES AND MARINE MAMMAL TRENDS IN THE NORTH PACIFIC—A RE‐EXAMINATION OF EVIDENCE FOR SEQUENTIAL MEGAFAUNA COLLAPSE AND THE PREY‐SWITCHING HYPOTHESIS

Abstract Springer et al. (2003) contend that sequential declines occurred in North Pacific populations of harbor and fur seals, Steller sea lions, and sea otters. They hypothesize that these were due to increased predation by killer whales, when industrial whaling's removal of large whales as a supposed primary food source precipitated a prey switch. Using a regional approach, we reexamined whale catch data, killer whale predation observations, and the current biomass and trends of potential prey, and found little support for the prey‐switching hypothesis. Large whale biomass in the Bering Sea did not decline as much as suggested by Springer et al., and much of the reduction occurred 50–100 yr ago, well before the declines of pinnipeds and sea otters began; thus, the need to switch prey starting in the 1970s is doubtful. With the sole exception that the sea otter decline followed the decline of pinnipeds, the reported declines were not in fact sequential. Given this, it is unlikely that a sequential megafaunal collapse from whales to sea otters occurred. The spatial and temporal patterns of pinniped and sea otter population trends are more complex than Springer et al. suggest, and are often inconsistent with their hypothesis. Populations remained stable or increased in many areas, despite extensive historical whaling and high killer whale abundance. Furthermore, observed killer whale predation has largely involved pinnipeds and small cetaceans; there is little evidence that large whales were ever a major prey item in high latitudes. Small cetaceans (ignored by Springer et al.) were likely abundant throughout the period. Overall, we suggest that the Springer et al. hypothesis represents a misleading and simplistic view of events and trophic relationships within this complex marine ecosystem.

CETACEAN OCCURRENCE PATTERNS IN THE AMUNDSEN AND SOUTHERN BELLINGSHAUSEN SEA SECTOR, SOUTHERN OCEAN

AbstractWe conducted 239.5 h and 3,494 km of cetacean surveys in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas, from 15 February to 31 March 1994; most of the area, the large portion of which was ice covered, had never before nor has it since been surveyed for cetaceans, even to the date when this paper was prepared (2006). Logistic regression and an information‐theoretic approach related the occurrence of Antarctic minke whales Balaenoptera bonaerensis (the most abundant species) to whether we were in open‐ or pack‐ice‐covered pelagic or neritic waters, in or out of the marginal ice zone (MIZ), and north or south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current southern boundary. Other variables included date and distance to the MIZ and shelfbreak front. Statistical analysis showed that the probability of sighting a minke, as well as killer whale—but not the case for an index to whale density—was related to the proximity of coastal polynyas in early autumn, switching offshore to the MIZ once waters within the pack began to freeze persistently later in the season. Probability of detection was higher with distance into the MIZ. Supporting these findings, the density index was strongly related to ice concentration in an inverse relationship. The strong relationship to polynyas and the MIZ indicate that sea‐ice divergence altered by decadal or longer‐term climate change, as described in the recent literature, could well affect any apparent, long‐term trends evident in this species' abundance if surveyed only in open or near‐to‐ice waters. We speculate on how the minke whale's pagophilic nature (1) could have been encouraged by large‐scale industrial whaling and by competition with species more characteristic of open waters and the outer MIZ, and (2) may have protected the population somewhat during industrial whaling resulting in the much greater abundance of this species now compared to other targeted species.

Have North Pacific killer whales switched prey species in response to depletion of the great whale populations?

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 310:235-246 (2006) - doi:10.3354/meps310235 Have North Pacific killer whales switched prey species in response to depletion of the great whale populations? Sally A. Mizroch*, Dale W. Rice National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Mammal Laboratory, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98115, USA *Email: sally.mizroch@noaa.gov ABSTRACT: Springer et al. (2003; Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:12223–12228) hypothesized that populations of seals, sea lions and sea otters in the northern North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea declined because of increased predation by killer whales, in what they termed a ‘sequential megafaunal collapse’. They hypothesized that the killer whales had been dependent on large whales for food, and that their increased predation on the smaller marine mammals was directly due to the depletion of great whale populations as a result of post-World War II industrial whaling. The maps presented by Springer et al. (2003) masked the development and precipitous decline of post-World War II industrial whaling. Our analysis shows that north of 50°N, whaling developed slowly from 1948 to 1951, expanded steadily from 1952 to 1962, and increased very sharply from 1963 to 1967. By 1968, there was near total drop-off in catches north of 50°N as the whaling fleets moved south. Because of the extraordinary whale biomass removals in the mid-1960s, any whaling-related prey shifting should have started by 1968, not the mid-1970s as they suggested. We also present data that refute their assumption that North Pacific killer whales depended on large whales as prey either prior to or concurrent with the whaling era. During the years of the development and pulse of whaling (i.e. prior to 1968), less than 3% of the mammal-eating killer whales were observed to have large whale remains in their stomachs. Killer whales attack healthy, adult large whales only rarely, and such attacks are usually unsuccessful. Neither minke nor gray whales were depleted by post-World War II industrial whaling, and they have always been available as prey for North Pacific killer whales. KEY WORDS: Whaling · Killer whale · Sequential decline · Sequential megafaunal collapse Full text in pdf format Supplementary appendix PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 310. Online publication date: April 03, 2006 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2006 Inter-Research.

Geographies of exploration and improvement: William Scoresby and Arctic whaling, 1782–1822

Although historians of the long eighteenth century have broadened our understanding of the concept of improvement beyond the agrarian reforms of a landed elite, to other social groups and geographical settings, the private ownership and access to the resources of the oceans and seas are phenomena that have until recently been largely neglected. This paper examines the concept of improvement in the maritime context by exploring a range of tensions between whaling as a form of economic private self-interest on the one hand and as a source of disinterested, virtuous knowledge about the oceans and the animal kingdom on the other hand. William Scoresby, a leading whaling captain and improver, embodied the spirit of those northern European nations which competed to improve the maritime sphere of the northern ocean by implementing different social and technical schemes of enlightenment. He went further than developing new and more efficient and profitable whaling technologies by cultivating disinterested virtue through providing privately obtained natural history specimens from the Greenland Seas for gentleman of science. This in turn gave him entry to participate in the civic circles of polite science and imperial networks of natural history. Although the ascent from industrial whaling in pursuit of profit to disinterested whaling in pursuit of science and exploration made perfect sense to Scoresby, his implicit social improvement laid him open to criticism from those who for different reasons disapproved of the marriage of industrial artisanship and polite natural history. The complexity of Scoresby's identity as an improver is revealed through Robert Jameson, the Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh University, who jealously controlled access to Scoresby's specimens, research, and publications from the Greenland Seas, while simultaneously promoting Scoresby as an intrepid, disinterested captain capable of representing the nation as an Arctic explorer. Through Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Society, they called on government to finance Arctic exploration to reach the North Pole, benefit science, and subsidise the costs through whaling. Their plans were consistent with a long tradition of commercial improvement serving state interests. The Royal Navy's response, to wrest control of Arctic exploration, was by contrast, not a rejection of improvement per se, but rather a determination to place itself at the centre of improvement, by renewing the Board of Longitude with elite, improvement-minded, gentlemen of science, while damning Scoresby with faint praise as an accomplished artisan.

The sequential megafaunal collapse hypothesis: Testing with existing data

Springer et al. [Springer, A.M., Estes, J.A., van Vliet, G.B., Williams, T.M., Doak, D.F., Danner, E.M., Forney, K.A., Pfister, B., 2003. Sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: an ongoing legacy of industrial whaling? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (21), 12,223–12,228] hypothesized that great whales were an important prey resource for killer whales, and that the removal of fin and sperm whales by commercial whaling in the region of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) in the late 1960s and 1970s led to cascading trophic interactions that caused the sequential decline of populations of harbor seal, northern fur seal, Steller sea lion and northern sea otter. This hypothesis, referred to as the Sequential Megafaunal Collapse (SMC), has stirred considerable interest because of its implication for ecosystem-based management. The SMC has the following assumptions: (1) fin whales and sperm whales were important as prey species in the Bering Sea; (2) the biomass of all large whale species (i.e., North Pacific right, fin, humpback, gray, sperm, minke and bowhead whales) was in decline in the Bering Sea in the 1960s and early 1970s; and (3) pinniped declines in the 1970s and 1980s were sequential. We concluded that the available data are not consistent with the first two assumptions of the SMC. Statistical tests of the timing of the declines do not support the assumption that pinniped declines were sequential. We propose two alternative hypotheses for the declines that are more consistent with the available data. While it is plausible, from energetic arguments, for predation by killer whales to have been an important factor in the declines of one or more of the three populations of pinnipeds and the sea otter population in the BSAI region over the last 30 years, we hypothesize that the declines in pinniped populations in the BSAI can best be understood by invoking a multiple factor hypothesis that includes both bottom–up forcing (as indicated by evidence of nutritional stress in the western Steller sea lion population) and top–down forcing (e.g., predation by killer whales, mortality incidental to commercial fishing, directed harvests). Our second hypothesis is a modification of the top–down forcing mechanism (i.e., killer whale predation on one or more of the pinniped populations and the sea otter population is mediated via the recovery of the eastern North Pacific population of the gray whale). We remain skeptical about the proposed link between commercial whaling on fin and sperm whales, which ended in the mid-1960s, and the observed decline of populations of northern fur seal, harbor seal, and Steller sea lion some 15 years later.

Sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: an ongoing legacy of industrial whaling?

Populations of seals, sea lions, and sea otters have sequentially collapsed over large areas of the northern North Pacific Ocean and southern Bering Sea during the last several decades. A bottom-up nutritional limitation mechanism induced by physical oceanographic change or competition with fisheries was long thought to be largely responsible for these declines. The current weight of evidence is more consistent with top-down forcing. Increased predation by killer whales probably drove the sea otter collapse and may have been responsible for the earlier pinniped declines as well. We propose that decimation of the great whales by post-World War II industrial whaling caused the great whales' foremost natural predators, killer whales, to begin feeding more intensively on the smaller marine mammals, thus "fishing-down" this element of the marine food web. The timing of these events, information on the abundance, diet, and foraging behavior of both predators and prey, and feasibility analyses based on demographic and energetic modeling are all consistent with this hypothesis.

Fear‐Arousing and Empathy‐Arousing Appeals to Help: The Pathos of Persuasion

An experiment tested the proposition that the components of a fear appeal which persuade us to protect ourselves are the Same components that persuade us to protect others. The results confirmed this hypothesis for the two components examined: noxiousness of the threatened danger and efficacy of coping response. Films showing noxious scenes of industrial whaling and films showing a pro‐environmental action organization successfully saving whales from whalers strengthened intentions to help this endangered animal species. Taken together, available data indicate that fear appeals can persuade us to protect ourselves, other people, and even infrahuman animals. The social psychological paradigm used to investigate attitude change was merged with a paradigm employed to examine prosocial behavior. As predicted, an empathy‐arousing appeal facilitated attitude change. Three implications for promoting ecological actions were discussed. First, empathy‐arousing appeals can be applied to mass media campaigns. Second, the concept of response‐efficacy in persuasive appeals can be extended from direct, individual action to activity requiring the mediation of social organizations. Finally, pro‐environmental campaigns can be effective when the potential beneficiaries are not the ones shown, but who symbolize the many others in the same plight.