Oceans Past

by Starkey, David J.; Holm, Paul; Barnard, Michaela

• ISBN13: 9781844075270
• ISBN10: 1844075273
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Rarely has humanity's underestimation of the impacts of its activities been so starkly demonstrated as in the marine environment. For centuries the seas appeared to offer limitless supplies of food and other resources, their waters a cornucopia never to be exhausted. In more recent times the extreme exploitation and subsequent collapse of cod populations of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and tumbling numbers of North Atlantic right whales are well-known examples highlighting the fallaciousness of this view. Yet all too often the lessons from our historical interactions with marine animals are little known, let alone learned. Based on research for the History of Marine Animal Populations project, Oceans Past is an accessible yet detailed examination of the complex relationship our forebears had with the sea and the animals that inhabit it. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it presents eleven studies ranging from fisheries to invasive species and from offshore technology to the study of marine environmental history itself, bringing together the perspectives of historians and marine scientists to enhance understanding of ocean management past, present and future. In addition to providing essential context to the debate around the impact of human activity on natural resources, the book also highlights the influence that changes in marine ecosystems have upon the politics, welfare and culture of human societies.

Table of Contents

Meets Marine Science

Social Conflict

Overfishing and Disease in the Florida Sponge Fishery, 1849-1939

Resolving the 120-year Debate Regarding the Purported

Invasion of the Common Periwinkle Snail

Littorina littorea, in Northeast North America

Historical Changes in the Retail

Cost and Usage of Seafood as Reflected in Restaurant Menus

Baiting Our Memories: Offshore Technology Changes and Their

Impacts on Inshore Species around Cape Cod, 1860-1895

Mapping Historic Fishing Grounds in the Gulf of Maine and Northwest

Atlantic Ocean

There She Blew: Yankee Sperm Whaling Grounds, 1760-1920

The Maury Abstracts and the North Pacific Right Whale Fishery

Sperm Whale Catches and Encounter Rates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

An Apparent Paradox

The Early Use of Historical Data for Interpreting the Dynamics of Marine Populations

The Political History of Maximum Sustained Yield, 1945-1955

Afterword: Lost and Found in the Past

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.