Stephen Palumbi, of Stanford University, and Joe Roman, of Harvard, have proposed that their findings of impressive diversity in the DNA of humpback whales in the North Atlantic are evidence that the pre-exploitation numbers of those animals were much higher than any previously derived estimates of their original population strength. According to extrapolations from Palumbi and Roman's new technique, the original western Atlantic humpback population was some 240,000 animals. Unfortunately for the researchers, even their environmentalist supporters doubt the veracity of this claim, although if it could be shown to have validity, it would be influential in preventing any rationale for resumption of commercial hunting of at least Atlantic humpbacks within the next millennium.

What are the problems with this DNA diversity approach to previous population levels? For one thing, the historical record (ships' logs and whale oil commerce reports dating back to the 1500s) does not support harvest of humpback whales in numbers even remotely close to those that would be necessary to have resulted in the verified low levels of animals by the 1980s. The apparent genetic diversity may reflect the species' survival over several million years, with gene flow between the Atlantic and the Pacific possibly accounting for some of it. Another problem is that the authors also used estimates of rates of natural mutations in the animals' genes as they tried to arrive at estimates of population numbers, but the fossil upon which they base their time line for these changes is not a humpback whale, and consequently, they have been criticized for using it for this purpose.

Does the name Palumbi ring a bell with anyone? Remember some years back, the "news flash" that researchers Palumbi and Baker used DNA samples of alleged whale meat in Japanese markets to declare that the Japanese were catching and selling protected whale species after the "temporary moratorium" on commercial whaling? The researchers bought samples of whale meat, took them back to their hotel room, allegedly did exacting DNA analysis under less than laboratory conditions, and then claimed that Japan was cheating on the moratorium. This, in a time when there were still frozen supplies of fin whale product from Iceland in Japan from before the moratorium, and in a time when there was no recognized DNA registry of any cetacean species occurring around Japan.

At the time of that Palumbi and Baker "disclosure", whale protectionists were anxiously trying to prove that Japan could not be trusted to honestly conduct scientific research in the Southern Ocean or anywhere else, and that Japanese whalers were actively violating the moratorium through coastal whaling or through illicit trade.

The hype that resulted from the Palumbi / Baker disclosures back in the '90s may well be reflected again today in the claims of Palumbi and Roman that humpback whales are more severely depleted in the Atlantic, compared to their alleged original population strength, than anyone had previously estimated. The implication of their study is that any resumption of hunting (perhaps by the Icelanders?) would further damage their chances at recovery.

Humpback whales are now conservatively thought to number about 10,000 animals in the western Atlantic. They have increased their numbers rather dramatically in the last twenty years, and it is thought that they have reached pre-exploitation strength, once again. Because of modern fishing by man, today's ocean is vastly different than that of even two hundred years ago. The future of cetaceans and fish resources will depend on wise, biology-based management decisions that are grounded both in history and science.

Let us not accept any off the wall claims that any species should be forever off-limits as we try to balance human needs with today's stark oceanic realities.