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”Appears in Can. J. Zool.84(7): 1059–1065.

Abstract

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.

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.

“…Higdon (2008: 77) criticizes our previous comment (Romero and Kannada 2006) by claiming that we present ''a number of factual errors, misuse several key sources, and make significant omissions'' in our paper. In this rebuttal, we show that Higdon (2008) mischaracterizes both the objective and content of our comment on Rastogi et al (2004). We also show that neither he nor a reply by McLeod et al (2006) provide any substantive evidence that contradicts our fundamental conclusions.…”

“…Would it have been justified to mention each one of them in single paragraphs to highlight that other nations had participated in whaling ventures in the North Atlantic? Certainly not; yet, by mischaracterizing the objective of our paper (Romero and Kannada 2006), Higdon (2008) misrepresents the intent of our original comment. Higdon (2008: 77) writes that '[t]he whaling literature often fails to distinguish between ''Greenland'' (i.e., east Greenland, Svalbard, and Spitsbergen areas) and ''Davis Strait'' fisheries (i.e., west of Greenland [.…”

“…Despite having said earlier that the basic objective of our paper was to point out the existence of historical whaling other than Basque in the North Atlantic, a word count of our paper (Romero and Kannada 2006) shows that we mention Svalbard 3 times, Spitsbergen 10 times, and Davis Straight 3 times. That is a far cry from Higdon's (2008) assertion that we were ignoring the existence of different whaling grounds in the North Atlantic.…”

“…In our view, this is an extremely important point because failure to acknowledge anthropogenic impacts by cultures other than the Basques creates a major vacuum in the understanding of the anthropogenic impact on whale populations in the North Atlantic. This, which was the main objective of our original comment (Romero and Kannada 2006), is omitted by Higdon (2008). Instead, he claims that we intended to provide ''a brief summary of North Atlantic whaling history''.…”

“…To say that we were trying to write the history of whaling for the North Atlantic (even a summary of it) in a commentary paper is a complete misrepresentation of our objectives. Had we intended to do what Higdon (2008) claims that we tried to do, then we would had written an entire book on the subject just like Prouxl (1986). Therefore, the suggestion that we obviate some literature out of ignorance is simply not true.…”