Bockstoce and Botkin Ice Data Re-published

More than three decades ago the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee recommended a moratorium on the Eskimo harvest of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas (B-C-B) because of a high (and then increasing) strike rate, combined with imprecise estimates that the bowhead population was low. As a result of this controversy, anthropologist/historian John R. Bockstoce and ecological scientist Daniel B. Botkin examined all existing logbook and journal records of the historical commercial whaling industry to estimate both the size of the bowhead population that existed at the beginning of the commercial harvest and the size of the harvest over time.

These ship logbooks provide unique information. Everyday an officer of a ship wrote in the logbook the sea and weather conditions and information about marine mammals seen, those chased, and caught. Logbooks exist for more than 500 voyages, 19% of all the voyages ever made to hunt the bowhead whale. (All the hunting of bowheads was done by whaleships out of New Bedford, MA.) Bockstoce and Botkin digitized all the daily records, which provide more than 65,000 days of observation between 1849 and 1915. Over the years, they have published papers based on these data.

And with the growing concern about the decline in Arctic sea ice coverage, measured by modern satellite remote sensing, the logbooks provided an additional insight. Each day, the logbooks record whether the whalers saw and/or were within sea ice. Cooperating with two sea ice experts of the University of Alaska, Andrew R Mahoney and Hajo Eicken, and an expert on some advanced data analysis methods, Robert A. Nisbet, they showed how Arctic sea ice extent in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas from 1850 to 1914 compare with modern sea ice extent. In this section of the CSE website, the major original papers about bowheads and sea ice are available.