"Confusing Figures On BBC Documentary The South Pacific" Topic

At least confusing to me.

This is the same documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbach (where he calls penguins pin-wengs and other things), so it's not a brand new one.

YouTube link

Anyway … these are the numbers that I found a bit confusing.

Cumberbach, reading from a transcript of course, says that humpback whales were hunted to near extinction, that their numbers plummeted 90% from their original numbers* Then he immediately goes on to say that ever since hunting was banned their numbers recovered from 5,000 to 60,000.

Question:
If the lowest figure happens to be the same for both statements (the 5,000 is somehow 10% of the species), wouldn't that mean that now there are more humpback whales than even before all the hunting first started?

Just curious.

Dan
* I'm not even going to say anything about how they could have known what their original numbers were in the first place way back when.

Even 60,0000 seems like a bit of a low number for a particular species in the grand scheme of things, especially at their supposed population height. So without being an expert at all, the numbers seem a bit, er, "fishy."

(Love whales, by the way, and in general I'm opposed to hunting them.)

One could suggest using google to search for whale populations. Apparently only radicals bent on bringing down civilisation do this sort of thing, but what the heck. link

Current global population estimated at 80,000
Pre-whaling global population estimated at 125,000
Species has been upgraded to 'least concern'.

Nick: "Apparently only radicals bent on bringing down civilisation do this sort of thing"

What "sort of thing" are you referring to? Simply looking for consistency in two back to back statements in a documentary?

If so, I didn't know that I was a "radical, and one "bent on bring down civilization". Nor did I know that civilization was so fragile that it could not withstand a simple question like the one I posed. Unless you are referring to some small and vulnerable "civilization" and not human civilization as a whole. I happen to believe that the latter is way more resilient than that. :)

Dan
PS. Thanks for the figures though. I guess they either had older figures or they obtained slightly different estimates from more than one source, and then picked numbers from each.

Dan – I was referring to a recent thread where Google was pointed out as a hot bed of radical lefties.

Nick :) :)

First off, the IWC ban on whaling in 1986 is not followed by all countries.

link

Then, a bunch of countries, including the US, Russia, and my own country Canada, get a bye via "indigenous whaling" . This allows whaling in these countries in order to preserve "traditional indigenous lifestyles". Ya, whatever.

Norway has increased it's quota on whales :(
They claim the population is stable, yet seem to forget all other pressures on whales not directly related to human hunting. Suddenly something happens and the population will be in danger.

Nick: "I was referring to a recent thread where Google was pointed out as a hot bed of radical lefties."

LOL. I thought all lefties had to follow the Alinski rules and find radical ways to rock the boat and distract with loads of drama, until they got one of their own to the top of course. Didn't Lenin, Trotsky and other "lefties" preach exactly that? :)

Anyway … about the topic of this discussion, I think the writers screwed up with the figures and thought no viewer would catch it.

Dan

I suspect most viewers don't pay that close of attention to the numbers. Many documentaries toss numbers around with little care for what they mean.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Anyway … about the topic of this discussion, I think the writers screwed up with the figures and thought no viewer would catch it

Documentary writers are not scientists. Documentaries are not peer reviewed journals. I'm certainly no expert but a population range of between 60,000 and 80,000 seems like a normal error rate. Unfortunately, the number of 80,000 is not referenced on WIKI so who knows.