Two intense decades of 19th century whaling precipitated rapid decline of right whales around New Zealand and East Australia

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Carroll, E.L., Jackson, J.A., Paton, D., Smith, T.D.
• Other Authors: University of St Andrews. School of Biology, University of St Andrews. Sea Mammal Research Unit
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: QL Zoology; GC Oceanography; QL; GC; New Zealand; Pew; Southern Right Whale
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10023/4819; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093789; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84898606222&partnerID=8YFLogxK

Funding for the review and report preparation was provided by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries through Project ZBD200505 to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Oregon State University General Research Fund to JJ and CS Baker and the Lenfest Ocean Program of the Pew Charitable Trust to SR Palumbi. EC was supported by a fellowship from the Tertiary Education Commission and TS through the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) project. Right whales (Eubalaena spp.) were the focus of worldwide whaling activities from the 16th to the 20th century. During the first part of the 19th century, the southern right whale (E. australis) was heavily exploited on whaling grounds around New Zealand (NZ) and east Australia (EA). Here we build upon previous estimates of the total catch of NZ and EA right whales by improving and combining estimates from four different fisheries. Two fisheries have previously been considered: shorebased whaling in bays and ship-based whaling offshore. These were both improved by comparison with primary sources and the American offshore whaling catch record was improved by using a sample of logbooks to produce a more accurate catch record in terms of location and species composition. Two fisheries had not been previously integrated into the NZ and EA catch series: ship-based whaling in bays and whaling in the 20th century. To investigate the previously unaddressed problem of offshore whalers operating in bays, we identified a subset of vessels likely to be operating in bays and read available extant logbooks. This allowed us to estimate the total likely catch from bay-whaling by offshore whalers from the number of vessels seasons and whales killed per season: it ranged from 2,989 to 4,652 whales. The revised total estimate of 53,000 to 58,000 southern right whales killed is a considerable increase on the previous estimate of 26,000, partly because it applies fishery-specific estimates of struck and loss rates. Over 80% of kills were taken between 1830 and ...