The true scale of Soviet whaling is published
Alexey Yablokov publishes the first account of the real Soviet catch, drawn from the internally retained true records. Every population reconstruction that had used the reported series - including those for Antarctic blue whales - now has to be redone against a different history. It is the clearest case in this Journey of a scientific baseline being corrected long after the events it describes.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Alexey Yablokov · person · Russia · not located
- International Whaling Commission · organisation · International · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Soviet illegal whaling: the devil and the details
The USSR conducted illegal whaling from 1948, fleets keeping a falsified return for the IWC alongside a true internal record; Yablokov published the first account of the real scale in 1994, indicating roughly 330,000 whales killed in the Southern Ocean against about 185,000 reported. Protected blue whales were taken; the reconstructed number is given inconsistently across accounts, from one or two thousand to more than three thousand. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this literature; no catch-data paper was fetched and no single blue whale total is asserted.
Marine Fisheries Review / NOAA; Ivashchenko, Clapham and Brownell, drawing on the records disclosed by Alexey Yablokov · catch period from 1948; disclosure published 1994 · Partly verified
https://indopacificimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Illegal-Soviet-Whaling.pdf ; also "Soviet catches of whales in the North Pacific: revised totals", J. Cetacean Res. Manage., https://journal.iwc.int/index.php/jcrm/article/download/556/281
Recorded on Alexey Yablokov
- The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is signed
- Soviet fleets take protected whales and file false returns
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
- The IWC adopts the commercial whaling moratorium
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
- The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is adopted
- The true scale of Soviet whaling is published
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is adopted · 1994
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect · 1986 (coastal); 1985/86 pelagic season
- The IWC adopts the commercial whaling moratorium · 1982
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting · 1966
- Soviet fleets take protected whales and file false returns · 1948-1970s
- The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is signed · 1946-12-02