Catches of Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, by the Soviet Union and other nations in the Southern Ocean, 1947-1973.

Clapham, Phil ; Mikhalev, Yuri ; Franklin, Wally 等

Introduction

The great whales of the Southern Ocean were extensively exploited by modern whaling methods, with the first catches made in the Falkland Islands Dependencies region of IWC Management Area II in 1904 (Tonnesson and Johnsen,1982; Hart, 2006). Exploitation went through several phases. Populations of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, and blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus, around South Georgia crashed around the time of World War 1, and further exploitation occurred in other regions into the 1930's. There was a hiatus in whaling during World War II, but large-scale catches resumed in Antarctic waters after 1945.

As is now well known, between 1947 and 1973 the Soviet Union conducted large-scale illegal whaling throughout much of the North Pacific, Indian, South Atlantic, and Southern Oceans (Yablokov, 1994, 1995; Yablokov et al., 1998; Ivashchenko et al., 2007; Berzin, 2008; Clapham and Ivashchenko, 2009). This campaign involved the killing of animals of all ages and species, irrespective of quotas, regulations, and protected status established at the time by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Much of the true catch data have now been made available through the efforts of former Soviet biologists working aboard the various factory ships involved; these data involve the number of animals taken, and sometimes additional details such as location of catch and biological characteristics of the whales.

In the Southern Hemisphere alone, almost 100,000 whales were secretly killed by the U.S.S.R. and not reported to the IWC (Yablokov et al., 1998; Clapham and Baker, 2002). Of this total, some 46,000 were humpback whales. Although the locations (general or specific) of most of these catches have been revealed, many discrepancies and gaps have remained which have complicated efforts to determine the potential impact of these takes on the stocks concerned. Here, we detail illegal Soviet catches of humpback whales in the Antarctic region during 1947- 73, and we attempt to assign these catches to each of the six management areas (termed Areas I-VI) defined by the IWC (IWC, 1980 and Fig. 1). We also provide data on humpback whale catches by factory fleet, as well as total catches (by the U.S.S.R. and other nations) for Areas IV, V, and VI.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Data Sources

From 1947 to 1973, Soviet catches of humpback whales were made by four floating factory fleets, which operated at various times during the period: Slava (1946-66), Sovetskaya Ukraina (195-973), Yuri Dolgorukiy (1960-1973), and Sovetskaya Rossiya (1961-73). The total catch during the entire period was 48,702 humpbacks; only 2,710 of these catches were reported to the IWC.

Here and previously, the first source for these catch records was Soviet Antarctic Whaling Data (1947-1972) (Yablokov,1995, commonly referred to by the color of its cover as "the green volume"). This provides details of reported vs. true catch data for each of the four floating factory fleets; in many but not all cases these catches are broken down by Area. However, there are two inconsistencies in this record:

1) If Area totals for each whaling season and factory ship are summed from the individual tables, they sometimes do not agree with the summary totals given for each factory ship for the entire period of operation. Sometimes this is because catches which were not assigned to Area are omitted from the summary table's totals; sometimes it appears to be a simple mathematical error.

2) Some data shown in catch summaries provided by Zemsky et al. (1995, 1996) are not included in the green volume, and (less often) the other way around.

The tables presented in this paper make the assumption that the data given in Zemsky et al. (1995, 1996) are more complete than those in the green volume, and therefore they represent a more accurate record; the only exceptions are a few places where Zemsky et al. (1995, 1996) have gaps that the green volume fills (e.g. the 1967-68 season for S. Ukraina). Thus, the tables represent a combination of information derived from both sources.

The data derived from the green volume for the Slava and Yuri Dolgorukiy needed no correction (i.e. the numbers were consistent between the Zemsky papers and the green volume). The S. Ukraina green volume data required some minor adjustments. The S. Rossiya data in the green volume were the most problematic. Data for non Soviet whaling operations were taken from summaries in various published sources, primarily Chittleborough (1965).

The 1959-60 and 1960-61 Antarctic Seasons

Of the 48,702 humpback whales caught by the U.S.S.R., more than half were killed in two Antarctic whaling seasons: 1959-60 and 1960-61. The Area breakdowns for Slava and S. Ukraina in 1959-60 were based upon original catch records and knowledge of where the fleets were operating (reported in less detail by Mikhalev, 2000). Operations in that season occurred between December and March in Area V, with an incursion into Area VI in the second half of March; because the exact number of whales taken in Area VI is not known, March catch totals for both fleets have been divided evenly between V and VI.

The Area breakdowns for Slava and S. Ukraina for 1960-61 were taken from Mikhalev (2004) and Zemsky et al. (1996), which together provide information on where the two fleets (notably the latter) were operating each month, together with catch totals for each month. In general terms, the fleets were in Area IV in November, Area V in December-January, and Area VI in February-March; but because there were a few days that did not quite fit this pattern, some catches (though not a lot) may have been assigned by us to the wrong Area.

Catch Summary

True Soviet whaling catches are reported by factory ship, year, and Area in a series of tables below, as follows: Slava (Table 1), Sovetskaya Ukraina (Table 2), Yuri Dolgorukiy (Table 3), Sovetskaya Rossiya (Table 4), all fleets combined, by Area (Table 5), by season and factory fleet (Table 6). Non Soviet catches of humpback whales in the same period came primarily from Areas IV and V; these are summarized in Tables 7 and 8, respectively.

Table 9 gives total catches for the entire period: 27,201 (Area IV), 38,146 (Area V), and 7,195 (Area VI), with 7,177 catches not assignable to an area. Including both Soviet and non Soviet catches, at least 72,542 humpback whales were killed in Areas IV, V, and VI during the post-war period.

Discussion

Following World War II, almost half the total of illegal whaling in the Southern Hemisphere by the U.S.S.R. were of humpback whales, which was probably the most abundant species in the areas in which the Soviet fleets were working, and thus provided the fastest way to meet the production targets in the industrial plan that governed everything. However, blue whales, sperm whales, sei whales, Bryde's whales, minke whales, and right whales were also killed in large numbers

Although the true catch figures have been known for some time, assigning these catches to Management Area has in many cases proved difficult. Contradictions in published information and lack of availability of detailed catch positions has introduced uncertainty into efforts to assess the impact of these catches on the various stocks concerned. Although more detailed information may become available from previously unsearched archives in the former Soviet Union, the summaries given here are the most accurate accounting available to date, and the reported totals are unlikely to be significantly in error.

The large number of humpbacks killed by the U.S.S.R. in Areas IV and V from about 1957 to 1961 precipitated major declines in catches at shore stations in Australia and New Zealand, notably those reliant on whales from Area V. More than 6,000 whales were removed from Area IV in 1957-58 and 1958-59 by the Slava fleet, and this was followed by a notable decline in catches at the two western Australian stations of Carnarvon and Albany, which in 1959 took only 700 humpbacks from an assigned quota of 1,175 (Table 7).

More dramatic was the situation in Area V following the huge Soviet catches in 1959-60 and 1960-61 (a total of 25,474 whales, of which about 20,630 came from Area V). In 1961, the eastern Australian stations of Tangalooma and Byron Bay failed for the first time to reach their catch quota, and the fishery collapsed the following year (Table 8). The decline was even more apparent to the east at the stations in New Zealand, where the catch dropped from 361 whales in 1960 to 80 (1961) and then 32 (1962). Similarly, in 1962 the station at Norfolk Island caught only 4 whales from a quota of 170.

The total post-war catches by all nations from Areas IV and V (27,201 and 38,146 humpbacks, respectively) were very large. If one compares these figures to current estimates of abundance and initial population size (IWC, 2006), it is apparent that the current sizes of these populations remain well below their pre-exploitation levels despite reported strong growth rates in some areas. Jackson et al. (2008) explored this issue using a two-stock Bayesian density-dependent logistic population model. Their median posterior estimate of carrying capacity for eastern Australia (broadly equivalent to Area V) was 26,383-31,400, with a median recovery estimate in 2008 of 27-31% of initial population size.

The situation with Area VI (total known catch 7,195 whales) is less clear than for Areas IV and V. Median posterior estimate of carrying capacity for Oceania of Jackson et al. (2008) was 16,022-22,957, with a median recovery estimate of 20-25% of initial population size. This estimate, together with the relatively low abundance of humpback whales observed in many parts of this region today (New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tonga, American Samoa, and French Polynesia) suggests a slow recovery from the large-scale overexploitation perpetrated by the U.S.S.R. This situation has prompted recent concern over the status of humpback whales in Oceania, and has led to that sub-population being categorized as "endangered" by the IUCN (Childerhouse et al., 2008).

Acknowledgments

We thank Cherry Allison at IWC for help clarifying whale catch data.

Literature Cited

Berzin, A. A. 2008. The truth about Soviet whaling. In Y. V Ivashchenko, P J. Clapham, and R. L. Brownell, Jr. (Editors), The truth about Soviet whaling: a memoir, p. 1-59 [transl. by Y. V. Ivashchenko]. Mar. Fish. Rev. 70(2).

Childerhouse, S., J. Jackson, C. S. Baker, N. Gales, P. J. Clapham, and R. L. Brownell, Jr. 2008. Megaptera novaeangliae, Oceania subpopulation. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (http://www.iucnredlist.org/ details/132832).

Chittleborough, R. G. 1965. Dynamics of two populations of the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski). Aust. J. Mar. Freshw. Res. 16:33-128.

Clapham, P., and C. S. Baker. 2002. Modern whaling. In W. F. Perrin, B. Wursig, and J. G. M. Thewissen (Editors), Encyclopedia of marine mammals, p. 1,328-1,332. Acad. Press, San Diego, Calif.

--. and Y. Ivashchenko. 2009. A whale of a deception. Mar. Fish. Rev. 71(1):44-52.

Hart, I. B. 2006. Whaling in the Falkland Islands Dependencies, 1904-1931. Pequena Press, Newton St. Margarets, U.K., 365 p.

Ivashchenko, Y V., P. J. Clapham, and R. L. Brownell, Jr. (Editors). 2007. Scientific reports of Soviet whaling expeditions in the North Pacific, 1955-1978. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-AFSC-175, 36 p. [transl. by Y V Ivashchenko].

IWC. 1980. Southern Hemisphere stock divisions. Rep. Int. Whal. Comm. 32:582.

--. In press. Report of the workshop on the Comprehensive Assessment of Southern Hemisphere humpback whales. J. Cetacean Res. Manage.

Jackson, J. A., A. Zerbini, P Clapham, R. Constantine, C. Garrigue, N. Hauser, M. M. Poole, and C. S. Baker. 2008. Progress on a two-stock catch allocation model for reconstructing population histories of east Australia and Oceania. Int. Whaling Comm., The Red House, Sta. Rd., Impington, Camb., U.K., Pap. SC/60/SH14, 12 p.

Mikhalev, Y A. 2000. Biological characteristics of humpback whales taken in Antarctic Area V by the whaling fleets Slava and Sovietskaya Ukraina. Int. Whaling Comm., The Red House, Sta. Rd., Impington, Camb., U.K., Pap. SC/52/IA12, 18 p.

--. 2004. Trade and the biological characteristic of humpback whales, caught by Soviet Antarctic flotillas into the season 1960-61. Int. Whaling Comm., The Red House, Sta. Rd., Impington, Camb., U.K., Pap. SC/56/SH9, 12 p.

Tonnessen, J. N., and A. O. Johnsen. 1982. The history of modern whaling. Univ. Calif. Press, Berkeley, 798 p.

Yablokov, A. V. 1994. Validity of whaling data. Nature 367:108.

--. 1995. Soviet Antarctic whaling data (1947-1972). Cent. Russ. Environ. Pol., Moscow, 320 p. [In Engl. and Russ.]

--, V. A. Zemsky, Y. A. Mikhalev, D. D. Tormosov, and A. A. Berzin. 1998. Data on Soviet whaling in the Antarctic in 1947-1972 (population aspects). Russ. J. Ecol. 29:38-42.

Zemsky, V. A., A. A. Berzin, Y A. Mikhalev, and D. D. Tormosov. 1995. Soviet Antarctic pelagic whaling after WWII: review of actual catch data. Rep. Int. Whal. Comm. 45:131135.

--, Y. Mikhalev, and A. A. Berzin. 1996. Supplementary information about Soviet whaling in the Southern Hemisphere. Rep. Int. Whal. Comm. 46:131-138.

Phil Clapham is with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115 (e-mail: phillip.clapham@noaa.gov) and the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, P.O. Box 3069, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Yuri Mikhalev is with the Ukranian Pedagogical University, Staroportofrankovskaya 26, Odessa 270020, Ukraine. Wally Franklin is with the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, P.O. Box 3069, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands and the Oceania Project, P.O. Box 646, Byron Bay, NSW 2481, Australia. David Paton is with the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, P.O. Box 3069, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands and Blue Planet Marine, P.O. Box 5535, Kingston, ACT 2604, Australia. C. Scott Baker is with the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, P.O. Box 3069, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands and the Marine Mammal Institute and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, 2030 SE Marine Science, Drive, Newport, OR 97365. Yulia Ivashchenko is with Seastar Scientific, Dzerzhinskogo St 5-30, 150033 Yaroslavl, Russia (current address: National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115). Robert L. Brownell, Jr. is with the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, 1352 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, CA 93950.

Table 1.--Number of humpback whales killed by the Slava, by area
and season, from 1946-47 to 1965-66. All catches from 1957-58 and
1958-59 have been assigned to Area IV, although it is likely that
up to about 300 of these animals were taken in locations to the
west of this region while in transit (Mikhalev, personal
recollection). The 1959-60 catches are known to have come largely
from Area V, with some others from western Area VI (Mikhalev,
2000); therefore, while the exact numbers per Area are not known,
the total has been apportioned on this basis. The Area totals for
1960-61 (when Slava and Sovetskaya Ukraina were operating generally
together) are estimated from information about fleet movements
given in Mikhalev (2004); while those figures are not entirely
accurate because of the grouping of some catches across the
boundary of Areas V and VI, they are unlikely to be significantly
in error.

Year Area I Area II Area III Area IV

1946-47 to 1956-57
1957-58 2,235
1958-59 4,039
1959-60
1960-61 19
1961-62 6 9 259
1962-63 6 16 453
1963-64
1964-65
1965-66 13 61

Total 12 0 38 7,066

Year Area V Area VI Unknown Total

1946-47 to 1956-57 3,564 3,564
1957-58 2,235
1958-59 4,039
1959-60 4,930 495 5,425
1960-61 2,415 1,612 4,046
1961-62 216 1,156 1,646
1962-63 168 103 746
1963-64 97 97
1964-65 0
1965-66 7 81

Total 7,736 3,366 3,661 21,879

Table 2.--Number of humpback whales killed by the Sovetskaya
Ukraina, by area and season, 1959-60 to 1967-68.

Year Area I Area II Area III Area IV

1959-60
1960-61 42
1961-62
1962-63
1963-64 4 11 24
1964-65
1965-66
1966-67 238 51
1967-68
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72
1972-73

Total 238 4 11 117

Year Area V Area VI Unknown Total

1959-60 6,848 672 7,520
1960-61 3,941 1,590 5,573
1961-62 1,078 1,078
1962-63 667 667
1963-64 260 299
1964-65 3 3
1965-66 710 710
1966-67 18 180 487
1967-68 181 181
1968-69 0
1969-70 0
1970-71 0
1971-72 0
1972-73 1 1

Total 11,067 2,442 2,640 16,519

Table 3.--Number of humpback whales killed by the Yuri
Dolgorukiy, by area and season, from 1960-61 to 1972-73.

Year Area I Area II Area III Area IV

1960-61 2 5 33 181
1961-62 191 17 108
1962-63 2 75 868
1963-64 27 118
1964-65 67 18
1965-66 774 265
1966-67 90 266 4
1967-68 535 84 4
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72 3
1972-73 2

Total 196 1,408 834 1,301

Year Area V Area VI Unknown Total

1960-61 2,274 415 2,910
1961-62 267 512 1,095
1962-63 945
1963-64 145
1964-65 85
1965-66 1,039
1966-67 360
1967-68 623
1968-69 0
1969-70 0
1970-71 0
1971-72 3
1972-73 2

Total 2,541 927 0 7,207

Table 4.--Number of humpback whales killed by the Sovetskaya
Rossiya, by area and season, from 1961-62 to 1972-73. The
difference between the data given in the green volume and the total
number reported by Zemsky et al. (1996) are assigned to unknown
area. The overall total of 3,097 agrees with that in Zemsky et al.
(1996).

Year Area I Area II Area III Area IV

1961-62 203 3 9
1962-63
1963-64 34 85
1964-65 56
1965-66
1966-67 103
1967-68 1 42
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72
1972-73

Total 203 0 38 295

 Area V Area VI Unknown Total

1961-62 1,069 404 1,688
1962-63 573 573
1963-64 4 27 150
1964-65 61 29 146
1965-66 223 223
1966-67 85 188
1967-68 6 56 20 125
1968-69 2 2
1969-70 0
1970-71 0
1971-72 0
1972-73 2 2

Total 1,225 460 876 3,097

Table 5.--Combined humpback whale catch totals by area and year
for all four Soviet factory fleets, 1946-73. The 3,564
unassigned catches from 1946-47 to 1956-57 seasons were all
taken by the Slava.

Year Area I Area II Area III Area IV Area V

1946-47 to
1956-57

1957-58 2,235
1958-59 4,039
1959-60 11,778
1960-61 2 5 33 242 8,630
1961-62 400 29 376 1,552
1962-63 6 2 91 1,321 168
1963-64 4 72 227 264
1964-65 67 74 61
1965-66 774 278 61 7
1966-67 238 90 266 158 103
1967-68 535 85 46 6
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72 3
1972-73 2

Total 649 1,412 921 8,779 22,569

Year Area VI Unknown Total

1946-47 to 3,564 3,564
1956-57

1957-58 2,235
1958-59 4,039
1959-60 1,167 12,945
1960-61 3,617 12,529
1961-62 2,072 1,078 5,507
1962-63 103 1,240 2,931
1963-64 124 691
1964-65 32 234
1965-66 933 2,053
1966-67 180 1,035
1967-68 56 201 929
1968-69 2 2
1969-70 0
1970-71 0
1971-72 3
1972-73 3 5

Total 7,195 7,177 48,702

Table 6.--Southern Hemisphere humpback whale
catches for all four Soviet floating factories, 1946-73.
Source: Zemsky et al. (1995, 1996), except for 1967-68
S. Ukraina data, which come from the green volume.

Season Slava S. Ukraina Yuri D. S. Rossiya

46-47 1
47-48
48-49 112
49-50 511
50-51 945
51-52 599
52-53 311
53-54 213
54-55 361
55-56 236
56-57 275
57-58 2,235
58-59 4,039
59-60 5,425 7,520
60-61 4,046 5,573 2,910
61-62 1,646 1,078 1,095 1,688
62-63 746 667 945 573
63-64 97 299 145 150
64-65 3 85 146
65-66 81 710 1,039 223
66-67 487 360 188
67-68 181 623 125
68-69 2
69-70
70-71
71-72 3
72-73 1 2 2

Total 21,879 16,519 7,207 3,097

Season Total

46-47 1
47-48 0
48-49 112
49-50 511
50-51 945
51-52 599
52-53 311
53-54 213
54-55 361
55-56 236
56-57 275
57-58 2,235
58-59 4,039
59-60 12,945
60-61 12,529
61-62 5,507
62-63 2,931
63-64 691
64-65 234
65-66 2,053
66-67 1,035
67-68 929
68-69 2
69-70 0
70-71 0
71-72 3
72-73 5

Total 48,702

Table 7.--Other (non Soviet) catches of humpback whales from Area IV,
1949-62. Point Cloates, Carnarvon, and Albany are all on the west
coast of Australia. Source: Chittleborough (1965: Table 1).

 Point Cloates Carnarvon

Year Quota Catch Quota Catch

1949 600 190
1950 600 348 600 40
1951 600 574 650 650
1952 600 536 600 600
1953 603 603 600 600
1954 600 600 600 600
1955 500 500 500 500
1956 Transferred (1) 1,000 1,000
1957 1,000 1,018
1958 1,000 885
1959 1,000 541
1960 750 440
1961 475 475
1962 540 503

 Albany

Year Quota Catch Antarctic Total
 (pelagic)

1949 0 190
1950 779 1,167
1951 1,112 2,336
1952 50 51 1,127 2,314
1953 100 100 193 1,496
1954 120 120 258 1,578
1955 126 126 28 1,154
1956 120 119 832 1,951
1957 120 102 0 1,120
1958 120 82 0 967
1959 175 159 1,413 2,113
1960 120 105 66 611
1961 105 105 4 584
1962 100 40 56 599

Total West coast of Australia: 1 5,868 18,180

(1) Quotas and catches transferred to Carnarvon.

Table 8.--Other (non Soviet) catches of humpback whales from Area
V, 1949-62. Tangalooma (Queensland), and Byron Bay (New South Wales)
are both in eastern Australia. Source: Chittleborough (1965: Table 2).

 Tangalooma Byron Bay

Year Quota Catch Quota Catch

1949
1950
1951
1952 600 600
1953 700 700
1954 600 598 120 120
1955 600 600 120 120
1956 600 600 120 120
1957 600 600 121 121
1958 600 600 120 120
1959 660 660 150 150
1960 660 660 150 150
1961 660 591 150 140
1962 600 68 150 105

Total Eastern Australia: 8,307

 Norfolk Island

Year Quota Catch New Zealand Antarctic
 (pelagic)

1949 141 0
1950 79 903
1951 111 162
1952 122 146
1953 109 504
1954 180 0
1955 112 1,097
1956 150 150 143 194
1957 120 120 184 0
1958 120 120 183 0
1959 150 150 318 885
1960 170 170 361 931
1961 170 170 80 293
1962 170 4 32 0

Total Eastern Australia: 8,307 2,155 5,115

Year Total

1949 141
1950 982
1951 273
1952 868
1953 1,313
1954 898
1955 1,929
1956 1,207
1957 1,025
1958 1,023
1959 2,163
1960 2,272
1961 1,274
1962 209

Total Eastern Australia: 8,307 15,577

Table 9.--Known total post-war catches (U.S.S.R. and other nations) of
humpback whales from Areas IV, V, and VI, and migratory corridors
directly north of these areas (e.g. Australia and New Zealand). There
were an additional 7,177 Soviet catches that were not assignable
to an Area.

Year/Source Area IV Area V Area VI Total

U.S.S.R., 1959-60 11,778 1,167 12,945
U.S.S.R., 1960-61 242 8,630 3,617 12,489
Other U.S.S.R., 1949-73 8,779 2,161 2,411 13,351
Australia-NZ, 1949-62 18,180 15,577 33,757

Total 27,201 38,146 7,195 72,542