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'

摘要

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 anaccurate 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 withsuch errors and omissions only adds further confusion to an already confusing theme.