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July 27, 2003

Whales May Have Been More Plentiful Than Once Thought

Whales May Have Been More Plentiful (washingtonpost.com)

Scientists may have profoundly underestimated the number of whales that once lived in the North Atlantic Ocean, a controversial finding that could have critical implications for the future of whaling and whale conservation, a new genetic study concludes.

The gulf between the new estimates and those from existing historical-statistical studies is so vast -- a difference of several hundred thousand animals -- that it has already provoked a spirited debate over scientists' techniques in gathering and analyzing the data.

...

Roman and Palumbi analyzed DNA from three species of North Atlantic whales and found the genetic variation to be unexpectedly high in all cases -- a result indicating that before commercial whaling began in the 17th and 18th centuries there was a much larger pool of animals than historical records suggest.

In fact, the authors report today in the journal Science, their analysis showed that the pre-whaling, or "historic," population of humpback whales in the North Atlantic was 240,000, 12 times as many as the current historical-statistical estimate of 20,000. There are about 10,000 now.

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Posted by Lance Brown at July 27, 2003 10:11 PM | TrackBack
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