Comment on the second reply by Higdon 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”Appears in Can. J. Zool. 86(1): 76–79.

2008 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-82
Author(s):  
Aldemaro Romero ◽  
Shelly Kannada

The second reply by J.W. Higdon (2008. Can. J. Zool. 86: 76–79) criticizes a previously published comment by us of T. Rastogi et al.’s (2004. Can. J. Zool. 82: 1647–1654) paper saying that we presented factual errors, misused key sources, and made a number of omissions. The main objective of our original comment was to show that there had been many other peoples and nations besides the Basques who were engaged in whaling in the North Atlantic for many centuries and, therefore, the Basques could not have been solely responsible for anthropogenic impacts on the populations of large whales in that part of the world. To that end we only sampled some sources to make our point. In this rebuttal, we show that Higdon mischaracterizes our comment as a historical review and that neither he nor B.A. McLeod et al. (2006. Can. J. Zool. 84: 1066–1069) provide any evidence that challenges our fundamental conclusions.

2008 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff W. Higdon

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 an accurate 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 with such errors and omissions only adds further confusion to an already confusing theme.


2006 ◽  
Vol 84 (7) ◽  
pp. 1059-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldemaro Romero ◽  
Shelly Kannada

Rastogi et al. presented their genetic analysis of 16th-century whale bones found on a Basque whaling ship excavated from Red Bay, Labrador Peninsula, Canada. Based on the results from a very small sample, these authors concluded that whaling populations were already depleted before the onset of whaling. This is in direct contradiction to historical data. They also implied that the Basques were the only Europeans whaling in the North Atlantic before the onset of Yankee whaling and that there was a belief that Basque whalers historically killed equal numbers of right and bowhead whales. Here we present data based on historical and archaeological records generated by several authors using different methodologies, which clearly show that (i) Basques were not the only whalers that impacted cetacean populations in the North Atlantic; (ii) the number of whales killed by different peoples for approximately two centuries indicates that both right and bowhead whale population levels were much higher than typically assumed; and (iii) for many years there have been records published indicating that the Basques and others killed more bowhead whales than right whales, at least in the western North Atlantic.


2004 ◽  
Vol 82 (10) ◽  
pp. 1647-1654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toolika Rastogi ◽  
Moira W Brown ◽  
Brenna A McLeod ◽  
Timothy R Frasier ◽  
Robert Grenier ◽  
...  

The North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis (Müller, 1776), is one of the world's most endangered large cetaceans. It is widely believed that Basque whalers caused the most dramatic decline of this species in the western North Atlantic during the early-16th and 17th centuries. Previous osteological analysis of 17 historic bones suggested that 50% of the Basque harvest consisted of right whales and 50% of bowhead whales, Balaena mysticetus L., 1758. This 50:50 ratio has been used to estimate pre-exploitation population size, which has subsequently formed the basis of recovery goals and plans for the North Atlantic right whale. Genetic analysis of 21 bones, 13 identified as right whales and 8 as bowhead whales through osteological examination, indicates that in fact only 1 bone was a right whale and 20 were bowhead whales. Additionally, preliminary microsatellite analyses of this specimen are not consistent with the hypothesis that whaling resulted in the low genetic variation found in this species today. These results differ from what would be expected based on any previous view of Basque whaling, and raise questions regarding the impact of Basque whaling on this species.


2006 ◽  
Vol 84 (7) ◽  
pp. 1066-1069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenna A. McLeod ◽  
Timothy R. Frasier ◽  
Bradley N. White

The comment by Romero and Kannada is presented as a critique of our previous work and suggests that our conclusions are in direct conflict with the historic whaling information reviewed in their paper. However, the critique is based on a misinterpretation of the geographical, temporal, and taxonomic focus of our previous work. The source of the putative conflict appears to stem from the misinterpretation that our results, focused solely on the impact of Basque whaling in the 16th and 17th centuries on the western North Atlantic right whale, were intended to be representative of all whaling of both right and bowhead whales throughout the North Atlantic. To demonstrate this, we briefly review our original results and conclusions and show that the information reviewed by Romero and Kannada does not challenge any aspect of our original work. As such, their comment is not a critique of our paper, but rather a brief review of the history of whaling in the North Atlantic.


Author(s):  
Robert H. Ellison

Prompted by the convulsions of the late eighteenth century and inspired by the expansion of evangelicalism across the North Atlantic world, Protestant Dissenters from the 1790s eagerly subscribed to a millennial vision of a world transformed through missionary activism and religious revival. Voluntary societies proliferated in the early nineteenth century to spread the gospel and transform society at home and overseas. In doing so, they engaged many thousands of converts who felt the call to share their experience of personal conversion with others. Though social respectability and business methods became a notable feature of Victorian Nonconformity, the religious populism of the earlier period did not disappear and religious revival remained a key component of Dissenting experience. The impact of this revitalization was mixed. On the one hand, growth was not sustained in the long term and, to some extent, involvement in interdenominational activity undermined denominational identity; on the other hand, Nonconformists gained a social and political prominence they had not enjoyed since the middle of the seventeenth century and their efforts laid the basis for the twentieth-century explosion of evangelicalism in Africa, Asia, and South America.


1945 ◽  
Vol 49 (410) ◽  
pp. 51-54
Author(s):  
A. Gouge

A Study of the air routes of the world brings out almost at once the fact that some of the most difficult route are also the most attractive. For instance, the North Atlantic route which couples North America with Europe is certainly one of the most difficult in the world, but also by the fact that it couples two of the most densely populated, as well as the most wealthy groups of people in the world, one of the most attractive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-111
Author(s):  
D. Kalibekuly ◽  
◽  
Y.S. Chukubayev ◽  

The paper examines the dynamics of regional security in Norway as a part of Northern Europe. Being a political and geographical part of the Euro-Atlantic security system. Northern Europe, in its turn, is experiencing the impact of the confrontation between Russia and NATO. Norway's security policy analyzed from the perspective of a regional leader, as a NATO member country participating in the operations of the North Atlantic Alliance and as NATO's northern wing.


Geology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armand Hernández ◽  
Mário Cachão ◽  
Pedro Sousa ◽  
Ricardo M. Trigo ◽  
Jürg Luterbacher ◽  
...  

Nearshore upwelling along the eastern North Atlantic margin regulates regional marine ecosystem productivity and thus impacts blue economies. While most global circulation models show an increase in the intensity and duration of seasonal upwelling at high latitudes under future human-induced warmer conditions, projections for the North Atlantic are still ambiguous. Due to the low temporal resolution of coastal upwelling records, little is known about the impact of natural forcing mechanisms on upwelling variability. Here, we present a microfossil-based proxy record and modeling simulations for the warmest period of the Holocene (ca. 9–5 ka) to estimate the contribution of the natural variability in North Atlantic upwelling via atmospheric and oceanic dynamics. We found that more frequent high-pressure conditions in the eastern North Atlantic associated with solar activity and orbital parameters triggered upwelling variations at multidecadal and millennial time scales, respectively. Our new findings offer insights into the role of external forcing mechanisms in upwelling changes before the Anthropocene, which must be considered when producing future projections of midlatitude upwelling activity.


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