The first great whale extinction: The end of the bowhead whale in the eastern arctic

In this paper we argue that the bowhead whale stock resident off the east coast of Greenland was hunted to the brink of extinction by 1828 due to the rapid increase in British productivity levels after 1750. A delay-difference recruitment model is used to reconstruct the size of the whale population and establish the chronology of its demise. A simulation model is used to determine the role played by subsidy policies, climate change, and international competition in the extinction. (C) 2001 Academic Press