Aboriginal Whaling from the Aleutian Islands to Washington State

O’Leary, Beth Laura

doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-092372-7.50010-8

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Eskimos have hunted eastern gray whales near the shores of the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas for thousands of years. Historically, Chukotka natives killed young gray whales (Krupnik, 1984), and until 1928, several Indian tribes between the Aleutian Islands and California hunted gray whales as a part of their cultural and religious traditions (O'Leary, 1984). Aboriginal whaling diminished in the mid-19th century caused in part by declines in gray whale abundance resulting from commercial hunting and native hunting and by changes in cultural traditions following contact with westerners (Krupnik, 1984).…”

Section: History Of Exploitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gray whaleEschrichtius robustuspopulation and stock identity

2006

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1. In response to conservation and management concerns about gray whale Eschrichtius robustus population and stock structure, we provide an overview of the life history and ecology of gray whales as a context for discussion of population and stock structure within the species. Historically eastern and western North Pacific gray whales were managed separately because: (i) their ranges do not overlap; (ii) genetic analyses indicate that the two populations are significantly different; and (iii) eastern gray whales have increased in abundance over the past century while western gray whales have not. 2.Here, we review gray whale migration timing and segregation, feeding and prey species, and reproduction and reproductive behaviour. For the eastern and western gray whale, we review their distribution, history of exploitation, abundance and current status, although most of what is known is founded on the better studied eastern gray whale and only implied for the lesser known western gray whale. Methods to investigate population and stock identity are reviewed including genetics, morphology, chemical signatures, carbon isotopes, parasites, photographic identification and trends in abundance. 3. While the evidence indicates that there is at least some degree of mixing within each of the gray whale populations, no stocks or sub-stocks can be defined. Population structure is not evident in nuclear data, and because selection occurs primarily on the nuclear genome, it is unlikely that there is structuring within each population that could result in evolutionary differences. For western gray whales, there are insufficient data to assess the plausibility of stock structure within the population, owing to its extremely depleted state. Research on eastern gray whales has focused mostly on documenting changes in abundance, feeding biology and behaviour, and suggests separate breeding groups to be unlikely. Both males and females are promiscuous breeders lending little opportunity for the nuclear genome to be anything other than well mixed as is suggested by the high haplotypic diversity of the eastern population. 4. The available data strongly indicate that western gray whales represent a population geographically isolated from eastern gray whales and therefore that the western and eastern populations should be treated as separate management units.

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Section: History Of Exploitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gray whaleEschrichtius robustuspopulation and stock identity

2006

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“…The eastern North Pacific (ENP) gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) population has been hunted extensively by both commercial and aboriginal whalers. Indigenous peoples of both North America and Russia have hunted gray whales in some locations for centuries and possibly for 2000 years or more (Krupnik, 1984;O'Leary, 1984). The winter breeding grounds of the ENP gray whale (lagoons and adjacent ocean areas in Baja California, Mexico) were discovered by Yankee whalers in the early 19 th century, and two commercial whaling vessels first hunted gray whales (in Magdalena Bay) in the winter of 1845-46 (Henderson, 1984).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population status of the eastern North Pacific stock of gray whales in 2009

Punt¹,

Wade²

2023

JCRM

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An age- and sex-structured population dynamics model is fitted using Bayesian methods to data on the catches and abundance estimates for the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) stock of gray whales. The prior distributions used for these analyses incorporate revised estimates of abundance for ENP gray whales and account explicitly for the drop in abundance caused by the 1999–2000 mortality event. A series of analyses are conducted to evaluate the sensitivity of the results to different assumptions. The model fits the available data adequately, but, as in previous assessments, the measures of uncertainty associated with the survey-based abundance estimates are found to be negatively biased. The data support the inclusion of the 1999–2000 mortality event in the model, and accounting for this event leads to greater uncertainty regarding the current status of the resource. The baseline analysis estimates the ENP gray whale population to be above the maximum sustainable yield level (MSYL) with high probability (0.884). The posterior mean for the ratio of 2009 (1+) abundance to MSYL is 1.29 (with a posterior median of 1.37 and a 90% probability interval of 0.68–1.51). These results are consistent across all the model runs conducted. The baseline model also estimates the 2009 ENP gray whale population size (posterior mean of 20,366) to be at 85% of its carrying capacity (posterior mean of 25,808), and this is also consistent across all the model runs. The baseline model estimate of the maximum rate of increase, λmax, is 1.062 which, while high, is nevertheless within the range of estimates obtained for other baleen whales.

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“…Age for census estimates reflects an upper bound for reports from the written historical record [28], [29], [92], [93].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Sea-level change [43] juxtaposed with A) the oldest known fossil belonging to the genus Eschrichtius , from the Pliocene of Japan (dashed line) [98] ; and B) the relative temporal ranges from other historical gray whale data, with the oldest example belonging to the species occurrence (solid line), from the Palos Verdes Peninsula of California [101] , [104] . Age for census estimates reflects an upper bound for reports from the written historical record [28] , [29] , [92] , [93] . …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Happened to Gray Whales during the Pleistocene? The Ecological Impact of Sea-Level Change on Benthic Feeding Areas in the North Pacific Ocean

Pyenson

Lindberg

2011

PLoS ONE

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BackgroundGray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) undertake long migrations, from Baja California to Alaska, to feed on seasonally productive benthos of the Bering and Chukchi seas. The invertebrates that form their primary prey are restricted to shallow water environments, but global sea-level changes during the Pleistocene eliminated or reduced this critical habitat multiple times. Because the fossil record of gray whales is coincident with the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, gray whales survived these massive changes to their feeding habitat, but it is unclear how.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe reconstructed gray whale carrying capacity fluctuations during the past 120,000 years by quantifying gray whale feeding habitat availability using bathymetric data for the North Pacific Ocean, constrained by their maximum diving depth. We calculated carrying capacity based on modern estimates of metabolic demand, prey availability, and feeding duration; we also constrained our estimates to reflect current population size and account for glaciated and non-glaciated areas in the North Pacific. Our results show that key feeding areas eliminated by sea-level lowstands were not replaced by commensurate areas. Our reconstructions show that such reductions affected carrying capacity, and harmonic means of these fluctuations do not differ dramatically from genetic estimates of carrying capacity.Conclusions/SignificanceAssuming current carrying capacity estimates, Pleistocene glacial maxima may have created multiple, weak genetic bottlenecks, although the current temporal resolution of genetic datasets does not test for such signals. Our results do not, however, falsify molecular estimates of pre-whaling population size because those abundances would have been sufficient to survive the loss of major benthic feeding areas (i.e., the majority of the Bering Shelf) during glacial maxima. We propose that gray whales survived the disappearance of their primary feeding ground by employing generalist filter-feeding modes, similar to the resident gray whales found between northern Washington State and Vancouver Island.

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Aboriginal Whaling from the Aleutian Islands to Washington State

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

Gray whaleEschrichtius robustuspopulation and stock identity

Gray whaleEschrichtius robustuspopulation and stock identity

Population status of the eastern North Pacific stock of gray whales in 2009

What Happened to Gray Whales during the Pleistocene? The Ecological Impact of Sea-Level Change on Benthic Feeding Areas in the North Pacific Ocean

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