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Genetic Study Shows Extent of Whale Slaughter
« on: Jul 25th, 2003, 8:05am » |
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By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A genetic study of whales suggests many more have been slaughtered than believed in the whaling frenzy that began in the 18th century, and shows populations have not recovered enough to allow hunting to resume, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
The International Whaling Commission (news - web sites) may be underestimating by tenfold the number of the giant mammals that lived in the seas before whaling began, the researchers said.
"The genetics we've done of whales in the North Atlantic says that, before whaling, there were a total of 800,000 to 900,000 humpback, fin and minke whales -- far greater numbers than anybody ever thought," Stephen Palumbi, who led the study at Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, said in a statement.
Such evidence is sure to add to the already heated and emotional debate over the future of whaling.
The study, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, suggests the worldwide humpback population could have been as high as 1.5 million -- more than 10 times the IWC's estimate of 100,000.
Joe Roman, a Harvard graduate student who worked with Palumbi on the study, said they used comparative genetics to estimate the genetic diversity of the whale population.
Larger populations tend to be more diverse, Roman said in a telephone interview. "Very small population sizes tend to winnow genetic diversity," he said.
They looked at mitochondrial DNA, which is genetic material passed down virtually unchanged from mother to offspring. Tiny mutations in that DNA can be used to track genetic change.
To their surprise, Roman and Palumbi found a large amount of genetic diversity in the whales -- far more than current population numbers would support.
"It means that whale populations in the oceans are a small fraction of what they were before," Roman said. "They probably have a long way to go to recovery."
COUNTRIES SPLIT ON FUTURE OF WHALING
The IWC is split between those who want to step up whaling, led by Japan and Norway, and other countries led by the United States and much of Europe that would restrict it even further.
"The IWC is the main organization that regulates whaling, and its policies allow for the resumption of commercial hunting when populations reach a little more than half of their historic numbers," said Palumbi, now a biology professor at Stanford University in California.
The IWC bases its historic estimates on unconfirmed whaling records dating back to the mid-1800s. They "may be incomplete, intentionally underreported or fail to consider whales that were struck and lost," the researchers wrote.
Whaling records indicate about 40,000 fin whales once swam the North Atlantic and the IWC says there are now 56,000 fin whales. But the genetics of 235 fin whales suggest there were once 360,000 of the animals.
"Somehow we have to reconcile those numbers," Palumbi said. "That's going to require going back and looking at the whaling records. Are they complete?"
Roman and Palumbi only looked at humpback, fin and minke whales, so-called baleen whales that live by filtering small sea creatures and plants through their jaws.
They provided oil for lamps, candles, soaps and perfumes, baleen for whips, corsets and other devices, and meat.
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