The siege of the South pole; the story of Antarctic exploration /

Mill, Hugh Robert

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.106775

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…1), it was driven to the brink of extinction by the 18 th and 19 th century sealing industry 28,29 . Harvesting begun shortly after South Georgia was discovered by Captain James Cook in 1775 and 'reckless extermination was the only method of seal-hunting (...) so that the first in the field at a new sealing ground was sure of an immense booty, and late-comers as likely as not would go empty away' 30 . Sealing reached its peak at South Georgia in 1800 when over 100,000 seals were harvested 31 .…”

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The genetic legacy of extreme exploitation in a polar vertebrate

Paijmans

Stoffel

Bester

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Understanding the effects of human exploitation on the genetic composition of wild populations is important for predicting species persistence and adaptive potential. We therefore investigated the genetic legacy of large-scale commercial harvesting by reconstructing, on a global scale, the recent demographic history of the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella), a species that was hunted to the brink of extinction by 18 th and 19 th century sealers. Molecular genetic data from over 2,000 individuals sampled from all eight major breeding locations across the species' circumpolar geographic distribution, show that at least four relict populations around Antarctica survived commercial hunting. coalescent simulations suggest that all of these populations experienced severe bottlenecks down to effective population sizes of around 150-200. Nevertheless, comparably high levels of neutral genetic variability were retained as these declines are unlikely to have been strong enough to deplete allelic richness by more than around 15%. These findings suggest that even dramatic short-term declines need not necessarily result in major losses of diversity, and explain the apparent contradiction between the high genetic diversity of this species and its extreme exploitation history.

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The genetic legacy of extreme exploitation in a polar vertebrate

Paijmans

Stoffel

Bester

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…The exploitation of Antarctic fur seals began shortly after the discovery of South Georgia by Captain James Cook in 1775. The most profitable strategy was to take as many seals as it was possible to kill in one season, as Mill (1905) comments: ‘Reckless extermination was the only method of seal‐hunting resorted to on the islands of South Georgia and the coasts of South America so that the first in the field at a new sealing ground was sure of an immense booty, and late‐comers as likely as not would go empty away’. Sealing at South Georgia reached its peak during the 1800–01 season (Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Bayesian inference of a historical bottleneck in a heavily exploited marine mammal

et al. 2011

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Emerging Bayesian analytical approaches offer increasingly sophisticated means of reconstructing historical population dynamics from genetic data, but have been little applied to scenarios involving demographic bottlenecks. Consequently, we analysed a large mitochondrial and microsatellite dataset from the Antarctic fur seal Arctocephalus gazella, a species subjected to one of the most extreme examples of uncontrolled exploitation in history when it was reduced to the brink of extinction by the sealing industry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Classical bottleneck tests, which exploit the fact that rare alleles are rapidly lost during demographic reduction, yielded ambiguous results. In contrast, a strong signal of recent demographic decline was detected using both Bayesian skyline plots and Approximate Bayesian Computation, the latter also allowing derivation of posterior parameter estimates that were remarkably consistent with historical observations. This was achieved using only contemporary samples, further emphasizing the potential of Bayesian approaches to address important problems in conservation and evolutionary biology.

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“…Unfortunately, little is known of Bellingshausen's voyage, as the narrative was never translated into English from the original Russian’ (Scott 1905: 10). Numerous other explorers of southern polar areas and those writing on exploration history reached the same conclusions (Fricker 1898: 41; 1904; Cook 1901: 36; Balch 1902: 83; Mill 1903: 151; 1905: 114–130).…”

Section: Americans British and Russians Declare Themselves Discoverementioning

confidence: 69%

The Russian Antarctic Expedition under the command of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and its reception in Russia and the world

Tammiksaar

2016

Polar Record

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The existence of an icy continent around the South Pole is known to everybody today. But it is common to ascribe this kind of modern knowledge to navigators sailing in southern polar waters in the 19th century. A good illustration of this is the Russian Antarctic expedition (1819–1821) under the conduct of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (Russian version Faddej Faddeevich Bellinsgauzen), the reception of which in Russian society of the 19th and 20th centuries is analysed in this article. During the cold war, beginning at the end of the 1940s, the question of who discovered Antarctica turned from being a scientific problem into a subject of political struggle between the United States of America, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. This article provides an analysis of the Russian discovery in the area, while at the same time, attempting to give an answer to the main question of the history of Antarctic exploration which is: is it well-justified to establish the first discoverer of Antarctica? All the dates in the text are according to the Gregorian calendar.

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The siege of the South pole; the story of Antarctic exploration /

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

The genetic legacy of extreme exploitation in a polar vertebrate

The genetic legacy of extreme exploitation in a polar vertebrate

Bayesian inference of a historical bottleneck in a heavily exploited marine mammal

The Russian Antarctic Expedition under the command of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and its reception in Russia and the world

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