The Change Mariner

DNA research suggests whales' decline worse than thought

New Zeland Herald

... For years whaling experts have relied on such witness accounts, as well as the log books of whaling captains, to assess the size of the whale population before large-scale hunting began in the 19th century.

... The International Whaling Commission (IWC), for example, estimates that the population of humpback whales in the North Atlantic now - about 10,000 - is about half of what it was before whaling.

But two marine biologists have questioned the basis of these estimates after a study of the genetic diversity of three species of baleen whales - humpback, fin and minke - living in the North Atlantic.

They think the number of humpback whales in the Atlantic before 1800 was not 20,000 as the IWC suggests, but a staggering 240,000.

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