🧵1️⃣/2️⃣ The Internet Archive helped solve a 100-year-old conservation mystery.
🧵1️⃣/2️⃣ The Internet Archive helped solve a 100-year-old conservation mystery.
Researchers discovered why some bowhead whale populations are recovering today from centuries of commercial whaling by using centuries-old Arctic whaling logbooks digitized by the New Bedford Whaling Museum and made accessible through the Internet Archive.
These logbooks remind us that preserved records don’t just document history: they unlock it for use today & tomorrow. 🔓
Centuries-old logbooks reveal how bowhead whales are recovering from near-extinction
New research used whaling logbooks to explain why only two of the four bowhead whale populations are bouncing back from whaling, which was abandoned a century ago.
theconversation.com
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2️⃣/2️⃣ By reconstructing historical whaling routes, scientists identified Arctic sea ice refuges where bowhead whales were protected from industrial hunting for decades.
Those safe havens reduced the impact of whaling on some populations and may explain why they are rebounding today. 🐋
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