Abstract
In the 1970s, new forms of public scrutiny were applied to the research methods of field biologists in the United States, particularly those studying endangered species and marine mammals. This paper shows how such scrutiny affected researchers’ choice of research methods through an analysis of a key moment in a decade-long controversy over the conservation of bowhead whales. In 1978, researchers at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory received funding from the Bureau of Land Management to radio-tag bowhead whales. Although this promising but still largely untested technique might have answered one of the central scientific questions in the controversy, it ultimately went unused. Technical considerations played a role in the decision not to use the technique, but the most important factor was scientists’ concerns about potential backlash from Iñupiat whalers and animal protectionists. The same forces that had made marine mammalogists more influential than ever and that had put into their hands the resources necessary to develop more effective research techniques also placed serious constraints on where, when, and how they could do their research.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. 1981. Prospectus and Proceedings of the Science Advisory Committee of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, October 1980 to May 1981. Barrow, AK: Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.
Albert, Thomas F. Jr. 2001. “The influence of Harry Brower, Sr., an Iñupiak Eskimo Hunter, on the Bowhead Whale Research Program Conducted at the UIC-NARL Facility by the North Slope Borough.” David W. Norton (ed.), Fifty More Years Below Zero: Tributes and Meditations for the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory’s First Half Century at Barrow, Alaska. Fairbanks: Arctic Institute of North America and University of Alaska Press, pp. 265–276.
Anonymous. 1972a. “Conservationists Back Natives.” Tundra Times, 17 May.
Anonymous. 1972b. “Importance of Sea Mammals to Natives.” Tundra Times, 29 March.
Anonymous. 1977. “Arctic Eskimos Fight Whale Ban.” Tundra Times, 17 August.
Anonymous. 1978a. “Scientific Programs at the NARL.” NARL News 2, March, 1.
Anonymous. 1978b. “Project Whales – New Research Program Proposed for NARL.” NARL News 2, September, 1–2.
Anonymous. 1979a. “Plans for Project Whales Spring Experiment Underway.” NARL News 3, January, 7.
Anonymous. 1979b. “Arctic Research Workshop Held at the NARL.” NARL News 3, December, 1–2.
Anonymous. 1980. “The NARL Mourns the Death of Mayor Eben Hopson.” NARL News 4, July, 1.
Arctic Institute of North America. 1997. Remembrances on the Event of the 50th Anniversary of the NARL, 1947–1997. Fairbanks, AK: Arctic Institute of North America.
Barrow, Mark V. Jr. 1998. A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Barrow, Mark V., Jr. 2009. Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bean, Michael J. and Rowland, Melanie J. 1997. The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Beers, Diane L. 2006. For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States. Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press.
Bockstoce, John R. 1986. Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Bockstoce, John R. and Burns, John J. 1993. “Commercial Whaling in the North Pacific Sector.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 563–577.
Brenneman, Betsy. 1976. “27th Annual Science Conference.” Tundra Times, 11 August.
Brewster, Karen. 2004. The Whales, They Give Themselves: Conversations with Harry Brower, Sr. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.
Brody, Hugh. 2000. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World. New York: North Point.
Cioc, Mark. 2009. The Game of Conservation: International Treaties to Protect the World’s Migratory Animals. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Clark, Tim W., Reading, Richard P. and Clarke, Alice L. (eds.). 1994. Endangered Species Recovery: Finding the Lessons, Improving the Process. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Cruikshank, Julie. 2004. “Uses and Abuses of ‘Traditional Knowledge’: Perspectives from the Yukon Territory.” David G. Anderson and Mark Nuttall (eds.), Cultivating Arctic Landscapes: Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North. New York: Berghahn, pp. 17–32.
Dronenburg, Ray. 1978. “Marine Bioacoustics.” NARL News 2, May, 1.
Dunlap, Thomas. 1988. Saving America’s Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind, 1850–1990. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 1990. Eskimo Essays: Yup’ik Lives and How We See Them. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Follmann, Erich. 1979a. “Gray Whales Radio-Tagged in Mexico.” NARL News 3, March, 5–6.
Follmann, Erich. 1979b. “Tagged Grey Whale Located off West Coast.” NARL News 3, May, 1.
Follmann, Erich. 1979c. “Flash!! Grey Whale with Radio Tag Located at Unimak Pass.” NARL News 3, June, 4.
Follmann, Erich. 1980. “Two Gray Whales Tagged in Mexico.” NARL News 4, April, 3.
Follmann, Erich H. and Manning, Arthur E. 1989. “The Use of Radio Telemetry as an Aid in the Retrieval of Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus) Struck During the Annual Eskimo Subsistence Hunt in Alaska.” Arctic 42: 189–198.
Gehringer, Jack W. 1975. “G. Carleton Ray and Douglas Wartzok: Issuance of Permit for Marine Mammals.” Federal Register 40: 25702.
Haldiman, Jerrold T. and Tarpley, Raymond J. 1993. “Anatomy and Physiology.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 71–156.
Harkin, Michael E. and Lewis, David Rich (eds.). 2007. Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Hensley, William L. Iġġiaġruk. 2009. Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People. New York: Sarah Crichton.
House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. 1975. Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, on Oversight of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972; To Review the Implementation, Administration, and Enforcement of the Act, October 21, 29, 30, December 9, 1975. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Ingold, Tom. 2004. “Foreword”. David G. Anderson and Mark Nuttall (eds.), Cultivating Arctic Landscapes: Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North. New York: Berghahn, pp. vii–xiii.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 1990. The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kelley, John J. 1980. “Plans for NARL Operations During 1980.” NARL News 3, August, 1.
Kofinas, Gary P. 2005. “Caribou Hunters and Researchers at the Co-management Interface: Emergent Dilemmas and the Dynamics of Legitimacy in Power Sharing.” Anthropologica 47: 179–196.
Koski, William R., Davis, Rolph A., Miller, Gary W. and Withrow, David E. 1993. “Reproduction.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague, and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 239–274.
Krech, Shepard, III. 1999. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton.
Laursen, Gary A. 1979. BLM/NARL Project Whales. NARL News 3, April, 2.
Mate, Bruce and Krutzikowsky, Gregory K. 1995. Application of Remote Methods of Large Cetacean Tracking: Bowhead Whales, Final Report, MMS 95-0053. Washington, DC: Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Service.
McBeath, Gerald A. and Morehouse, Thomas A. 1980. The Dynamics of Alaska Native Self-Government. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
McCartney, Allen P. (ed.). 2003. Indigenous Ways to the Present: Native Whaling in the Western Arctic. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press.
McLeod, Samuel A., Whitmore, Frank C. Jr. and Barnes, Lawrence G. 1993. “Evolutionary Relationships and Classification.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 45–70.
Montague, J. Jerome. 1993. “Introduction.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 1–21.
Montgomery, Suzanne (ed.). 1987. Report on the 24–26 February 1987 Workshop to Assess Possible Systems for Tracking Large Cetaceans. Washington, DC: Marine Mammal Commission.
Moore, Sue E. and Reeves, Randall R. 1993. “Distribution and Movement.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague, and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 313–386.
Ralls, Katherine and Brownell, Robert L. Jr. 1989. “Protected Species: Research Permits and the Value of Basic Research.” BioScience 39: 394–396.
Ray, G.C., Mitchell, E.D., Wartzok, D., Kozicki, V.M. and Maiefski, R. 1978. “Radio Tracking of a Fin Whale (Baleanoptera physalus).” Science 202: 524–541.
Schevill, William E., Ray, G. Carleton and Norris, Kenneth S. (eds.). 1974. The Whale Problem: A Status Report. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schoning, Robert W. 1975. “G. Carleton Ray and Douglas Wartzok: Issuance of Endangered Species Permit.” Federal Register 40: 31824.
Stoker, Sam W. and Krupnik, Igor I. 1993. “Subsistence Whaling.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 579–629.
Thomas, Jack Ward. 2000. “From Managing a Deer Herd to Moving a Mountain: One Pilgrim’s Progress.” Journal of Wildlife Management 64: 1–10.
Watkins, W.A., Wartzok, D., Würsig, B., Kelly, B.P. and Fistrup, K. 1989. “Radio Tracking of Bowhead Whales.” Proceedings of the Eighth Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, Asilomar, CA.
Watkins, William A. and Schevill, William E. 1977. Development and Testing of a Radio Whale Tag, Technical Report 77–58. Woods Hole, MA: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Wohlforth, Charles P. 2004. The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change. New York: North Point Press.
Yaffee, Steven L. 1982. Prohibitive Policy: Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zeh, Judith E., Clark, Christopher W., George, John C., Withrow, David, Carroll, Geoffrey M. and Koski, William R. 1993. “Current Population Size and Dynamics.” John J. Burns, J. Jerome Montague and Cleveland J. Cowles (eds.), The Bowhead Whale. Lawrence, KS: Society for Marine Mammalogy, pp. 409–489.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Benson, E. A Difficult Time with the Permit Process. J Hist Biol 44, 103–123 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-010-9244-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-010-9244-6