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Mammal‐eating killer whales, industrial whaling, and the sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: A reply to critics of Springer et al . 2003
Author(s) -
Springer A. M.,
Estes J. A.,
Van Vliet G. B.,
Williams T. M.,
Doak D. F.,
Danner E. M.,
Pfister B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
marine mammal science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.723
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1748-7692
pISSN - 0824-0469
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00185.x
Subject(s) - whaling , megafauna , whale , bay , marine mammal , ecology , environmental ethics , geography , archaeology , biology , philosophy , pleistocene
most carnivores do not confine themselves rigidly to one kind of prey; so that when their food of the moment becomes scarcer than a certain amount, the enemy no longer finds it worth while to pursue this particular one and turns its attention to some other species instead. We (Springer et al. 2003) advanced an hypothesis to explain the precipitous declines of pinniped and sea otter populations in the North Pacific Ocean that centers around the ecological consequences of massive industrial whaling that began in this region at the end of World War II. We proposed that the great whales once provided large 414