Imaginary sea monsters and real environmental threats: Reconsidering the famous Osborne, ‘Moha-moha’, Valhalla, and ‘Soay beast’ sightings of unidentified marine objects

Abstract

At one time, largely but not exclusively during the nineteenth century, retellings of encounters with sea monsters were a mainstay of dockside conversations among mariners, press reportage for an audience of fascinated landlubbers, and journal articles published by believing or sceptical natural scientists. Today, to the increasing frustration of cryptozoologists, mainstream biologists and environmental historians have convincingly argued that there is a long history of conflating or misidentifying known sea animals as purported sea monsters. The present paper provides, for the first time, a detailed, diachronic review of competing theories that have been posited to explain four particular encounters with sea monsters, which at the time of the sightings (1877, 1890, 1905, and 1959) had garnered worldwide attention and considerable fame. In so doing, insights are gleaned about the role played by sea monsters in the culture of late-Victorian natural science. Additionally, and most importantly, I offer my own parsimonious explanation that the observed 'sea monsters' may have been sea turtles entangled in pre-plastic fishing gear or maritime debris. Environmental history is therefore shown to be a valuable tool for looking backward in order to postulate the length of time that wildlife populations have been subjected to anthropogenic pressure. This is something of contemporary importance, given that scholars are currently involved in deliberations concerning the commencement date of the Anthropocene Era.

Historical anecdotes of fishing pressure: Misconstrued “sea serpent” sightings provide evidence for antecedent entanglement of marine biota in the British Isles

“…Other examples, such as the Gloucester and Egede UMOs, are more elusive and require detailed screening of the candidates (France, 2019a, 2021), in a manner similar to what has been described as the “detective work” (McClenachan, 2015) or “forensic pursuit” (Alexander et al., 2017) that is sometimes necessary in historical ecological research. For the present investigation of the British Isles, the most likely suspects for antecedent entanglement are the same as those which have been hypothesized previously as explanations behind "sea serpents" in other locations: cetaceans (Fama, 2012; France, 2016b, 2018; Heuvelmans, 1968), chelonians (France, 2016c, 2017), large fishes (de Camp & Crook de Camp, 1985; France, 2019a, 2019b) and pinnipeds (Cornes & Cunningham, 2019). Notably, these are all animals recognized today for being highly susceptible to fishery by‐catch and entanglement (Laist, 1997; NOAA, 2014).…”

“…Deductions that a not‐insignificant proportion of these numerous UMO sightings can be parsimoniously explained (i.e., through Occam's Razor–Das, 2009) as being unrecognized animals that were non‐lethally entangled have now been made for three of the regions: Northern Europe (this paper), north‐eastern North America (France, 2019c) and the Western Pacific (France, 2020a). When combined with other reinterpreted sightings of selected and famous UMOs spanning locations as separated as Saint Helena, the Great Barrier Reef, the Cape of Good Hope and Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere (de Camp & Crook de Camp, 1985; France, 2016b, 2017, 2018) and Sicily, the Scottish Hebrides, Norway, Greenland and Alaska in the Northern Hemisphere (France, 2017, 2019b, 2021, in prep. ), entanglement during the nineteenth century can be surmised to have been a truly global phenomenon.…”

“…When combined with other reinterpreted sightings of selected and famous UMOs spanning locations as separated as Saint Helena, the Great Barrier Reef, the Cape of Good Hope and Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere (de Camp & Crook de Camp, 1985;France, 2016bFrance, , 2017France, , 2018 and Sicily, the Scottish Hebrides, Norway, Greenland and Alaska in the Northern Hemisphere (France, 2017(France, , 2019b(France, , 2021 prep. ), entanglement during the nineteenth century can be surmised to have been a truly global phenomenon.…”

“…In particular, textural records by laypeople provide surrogate information that marine animals have been subjected to anthropogenic pressure, not just from direct fishery mortality as has been previously noted, but also through a consequence of being non-lethally entangled in fishing gear. Previous work has advanced this illation for the taxa of cetaceans (France, 2016b(France, , 2018, chelonians (France, 2016c(France, , 2017 and fishes (France, 2019a(France, , 2019b, as well as for the regions of New England (France, 2019c), Atlantic Canada (France, 2020a) and the Western Pacific (France, 2020b).…”

“…Two sightings of UMOs that occurred within the Scottish Hebrides went on to garner considerable worldwide attention: that of the "Soay beast" in 1959, which became one of the most discussed "sea monsters" in the second half of the twentieth century (Brongersma, 1968), and that of the creature observed from the vessel Leda in 1872, which has been described as "the most detailed account of a sea serpent encounter" in the British Isles (Harrison, 2001, p. 153). Based on information purveyed within the anecdotal descriptions and accompanying illustrations from eyewitnesses (see France, 2017France, , 2019b, there is a high likelihood that both of these pertain to animals that were entangled in fishing gear. The purpose of the present investigation was to expand examination of the corpus of UMO sightings to include those from the entire region of the British Isles and over a period of two centuries, to see whether there is compelling evidence for what would be, if so demonstrated, the earliest examples of non-lethal entanglement in European waters.…”