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Reviewer: Grungaloo (talk · contribs) 19:12, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 20 upper, I'm going to take this review on. It may take me a few days for a full review but I'll ping you when I'm done. Feel free to ping me in the meantime if you have any questions. grungaloo (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Grungaloo: I've applied almost all of your suggested changes. I'm taking a break, and when I come back, I'll try to find citations for "each description of the species (Rudolphi, Cuvier, Lesson)". 20 upper (talk) 10:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 20 upper, I've finished my review. My comments are almost entirely prose-related, so hopefully it should be easy enough to get this to GA. Feel free to respond to my comments inline, just indent/sign them so I know they're yours. Ping me when you're done and ready for me to check. grungaloo (talk) 19:16, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Grungaloo I'm  Done, please have a look. 20 upper (talk) 10:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the work, it looks great. There are only 2 outstanding items from what I can tell. I've marked both in the comments below with  . Once those have been resolved I think this will be good to promote. I also made a few minor copyedits (grammar fixes, missing words) during this read-through. Let me know if you have any issues with the changes I made. grungaloo (talk) 03:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Grungaloo I'm done. I think I've specified the second issue; if not, please tell me what you don't understand. 20 upper (talk) 08:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies! When I re-read it I missed the change you had made. Thanks for all your work on this, I'm promoting this article. grungaloo (talk) 23:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   See comments Issues addressed, prose is good.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   Ref spot checks all good. No sign of OR or copyvio.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Good coverage of topic, not overburdened with detail.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Meets NPOV

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   No problematic reverts or obvious edit-warring.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Good images, appropriately captioned.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments[edit]

General comments[edit]

• Some measurements are meters converted to feet, others are feet converted to meters. It looks like this is because of different authors, but one convention should be used throughout.

Lead[edit]

• Last sentence about CITES appendices could be better written by explaining what that means (one requires immediate intervention, the other less so). General readers likely won't know about CITES.

Etymology[edit]

• Not required for GA, but what are your thoughts on moving this as a subsection of Taxonomy? I've usually seen common names describe under that section.
• First 2 sentences seem to be directly copied from the source, need to be rewritten. Other refs that I can access look good.
• "The specific name is the Latin word borealis, meaning northern." - This is more or less repeated in the Taxonomy section, so if you do combine the sections I'd drop this.
• The last sentence about it being compared to a cheetah, is this the place for that? I think it should be moved to Life history > Surface behaviors where you talk about its speed.

Taxonomy[edit]

• References seem light in this section, could you find and add references to each description of the species (Rudolphi, Cuvier, Lesson)?
• "whale stranded near Grömitz, in Schleswig-Holstein as Balaena rostrata" - Comma needed after "in Schleswig-Holstein".
• "described and figured Rudolphi's specimen under the name "rorqual du Nord" - "described and figured" sounds odd, I would just say "described Rudolphi's specimen as "rorqual du Nord"".
• YThere's disagreement with the speciesbox synonyms - did Flower describe it as Sibbaldius laticeps or Sibbaldius schlegelii?
  • Still an issue here. The text says "In 1865, British zoologist William Henry Flower named a 14 m (46 ft) specimen that had been obtained from Pekalongan, on the north coast of Java, Sibbaldius (Balaenoptera) schlegelii—in 1946 the Russian scientist A.G. Tomilin synonymized S. schlegelii and B. borealis, creating the subspecies B. b. schlegelii and B. b. borealis.". Reading that, Flowers described Sibbaldus schlegelii, but the species box now has Flowers listed as describing Physalus laticeps. Could you please double check the source and confirm which is correct?
• "Norwegian scientist G. A. Guldberg first identified the "sejhval" of Finnmark with B. borealis." - "sejhval" should be italicized per MOS:FOREIGN
• Reference spot check good (fn 14/15/16)

Size[edit]

•  Done Entire section needs a re-write. It's hard to parse what's important from it, needs more prose injected and could drop some of the information from less important sources.
• Double check the wording of the weight conversions. Some say "average between X and Y" (good) and others says "average X and Y" (bad). I'd even suggest dropping "average between" and just list measurements using en-dashes like this: "At birth, a calf typically measures 4.4–4.5 m (14–15 ft) in length.". Makes it easier to read.
• I'd break the St Kilda fact out into it's own sentence for better flow.
• "they average 14.5 (47.5 ft) and 15 m (49 ft)" - Missing the unit on the first measurement.
• "In the North Atlantic, the average length of a sexually matured male" - Why the use of "sexually matured male" here as opposed to "adult" where it's used everywhere else in the paragraph? Is this a distinction the source makes?
• 3rd paragraph, ref 21 is repeated 3 times. Only needs to be cited at the end of the paragraph in that case.

Anatomy[edit]

• Suggest starting the section with "The sei whale's body" rather than just "The whale". I think it adds clarity.
• "The sei's very fine baleen bristles, about 0.1 mm (0.0039 in) are the most reliable" - Comma needed after the measurement conversion.
• "especially its smaller relative the Bryde's whale." - "especially to its smaller..."
• " Large individuals can be confused with fin whales" - Specify "Large sei whales". Since it was just talking about Bryde's whale, it's good to be clear on the whales you're now referring to.
• "The whale's lower jaw's right side is white, and the left side is grey." - This doesn't sound quite right. Could rewrite to "The right side of the whale's lower jaw is white, while the left side is grey" or something similar. Also, is this referring to sei whales or fin whales?
• Ref spot check, fn 31/36/29 look good. Ref 35 (Schilling et al) goes to a dead link, doesn't need to be fixed for GA but wanted to point it out.

Life history[edit]

• Ref spot check good (37,22,42,44,48,56,57)
• First few sentences in Surface behaviors don't flow well. They're short declarative sentences with no connection between them. I'd suggest rewriting for better flow. Even joining the parts about group size and unknown social behaviours would help.
• "Sei whales usually travel alone[39] or in pods of up to six individuals.[36]" - ref 39 needs to be at the end of the sentence.
• "The whale almost never lifts its flukes above the surface, and are generally less active on water surfaces than closely related Bryde's whales" - "and is generally less active". Subject/verb agreement.
• "For an animal of its size, for the most part, its preferred foods lie unusually relatively low in the food chain, including zooplankton and small fish." - This sentence feels odd, specifically "unusually relatively" paired with "for the most part". I'd rewrite this, at least splitting up "unusually relatively".
• "Some of these fish are commercially important." - What's the relevance of this? Suggest dropping since it's not cited either.
• Vocalizations section uses British English "metre" while the rest of the article is primarily American English. Suggest changing to make consistent.
• "east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which were only significantly associated with the presence of sei whales." - What does it mean, "only significantly associated"? Was there a question of whether it was associated with another species? Suggest rewriting the sentence for clarity, might just need to drop either "only" or "significantly".

Range and migration[edit]

• Ref spot check - 70,71,72, dead links so couldn't verify. 80 is good, AGF book sources are good.
• "Approximately 75% of the North Pacific population lives east of the International Date Line,[69] but there is little information regarding the North Pacific distribution." - This sentence doesn't seem to agree with itself. Does it mean that we don't know much specifics beyond the 75% distribution.
• "In Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk, whales are not common, although whales were more commonly seen than today in southern part of Sea of Japan from Korean Peninsula to the southern Primorsky Krai in the past, and there had been a sighting in Golden Horn Bay,[73] and whales were much more abundant in the triangle area around Kunashir Island in whaling days, making the area well known as sei – ground,[74] and there had been sightings of the species off the Sea of Japan during cetacean surveys." - This is a run-on sentence, needs to be split up.
• "For example, Ruud (1952) found that 42 of the "sei whale" catch off Gabon in 1952" - "caught of Gabon" - Subject/verb agreement.
• "Sei whales are commonly distributed along west to southern Latin America including along entire Chilean coasts, within Beagle Channel[78] and possibly feed in the Aysen region.[" - Needs a rewrite, seems like the last half of the sentence is maybe missing some words?
• "The Falkland Islands appears to be a regionally important area for the sei whale," - "The Falkland Islands appear to be" - Subject/verb agreement.
• "arrive in the areas of Georges Bank, Northeast Channel, and Browns Bank by mid- to late June." - Add a hyphen between between "late June".
• Y"Whales in the Labrador Sea as early as the first week of June may move farther northward to waters southwest of Greenland later in the summer." - Unclear of the timing, do they move early June, or later in the summer?
  • They move in early June, and arrive in the summer; will specify in the article. 20 upper (talk) 04:44, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• "Despite knowing some general migration patterns, exact routes are incompletely known[27] and scientists cannot readily predict exactly where groups will appear from one year to the next" - Ref 27 needs to go at the end of the sentence.
• "F.O. Kapel noted a correlation between appearances west of Greenland and the incursion of relatively warm waters from the Irminger Current into that area." - Is F O Kapel well known and worth naming here? Most of the article just uses "a study" or something generic rather than the authors name, I suggest removing their name for consistency.

Whaling[edit]

• "Initially their speed and elusiveness,[87] and later the comparatively small yield of oil and meat partially protected them." - Specify the sei whale here since it's a new section.
• "They were hunted in large numbers off the coasts of Norway and Scotland beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,[82] and in 1885 alone, more than 700 were caught off Finnmark." - Comma not needed after "and in 1885 alone".
• "In 1971, after a decade of high catches, it became scarce in Japanese waters, ending commercial whaling in 1975."- Unclear what's meant by "ending commercial whaling". Was this the general end of commercial whaling in Japan, or the end of hunting sei whales specifically?
• Post-protection whaling - The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs are single sentences. Suggest joining them into one paragraph.
• "In 2010, a Los Angeles exclusive Sushi restaurant" - Sushi doesn't need to be capitalized.
• Is there any information regarding illegal whaling on sei whales?
  • Yes, I think it's recent hunts off of the waters of Japan. Will try to find an academic journal on this. Couldn't find anything, at least from reliable secondary sources. 20 upper (talk) 10:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  No worries, thanks for double checking. grungaloo (talk) 03:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Conservation status[edit]

• "There is no direct evidence of illegal whaling in the North Pacific, although the acknowledged misreporting of whaling data by the Soviet Union." - Unclear what's meant by the "misreporting". Does this mean that this misreporting does show that sei whales were still hunted?
  • Most probably yes. 20 upper (talk) 04:14, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• "The species remained listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2000," - I don't think this is relevant anymore. The latest IUCN report on sei whales is from 2018, so it staying on the list in 2000 isn't really relevant. Also, you don't need to put quotations around "endangered".
• "Northern Hemisphere populations are listed as CITES Appendix II," - "are listed in CITES Appendix". Same goes for the next sentence about appendix I.
• "The sei whale is listed on both Appendix I[106] and Appendix II[106] of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). " - This whole paragraph cites one source, cite it at the end of the paragraph and not inline.
• "It is listed on Appendix I[106] as this species has been categorized as being in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant proportion of their range and CMS parties strive towards strictly protecting these animals, conserving or restoring the places where they live, mitigating obstacles to migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them and also on Appendix II." - Run-on sentence. Could probably be shortened too, no need to restate all of CMS' goals - just get the general gist.

Population estimates[edit]

•  DoneThis section suffers a bit from WP:OVERCITE, both in ref-bombing and repeats. It's not too bad but could be cleaned up.
• Make sure that the date is listed for older population estimates. For instance, the Nova Scotia estimate is from 1977 but that date isn't listed. Since population can change dramatically over the years, it's important to know when something was recorded.
• "A 1991 study in the North Atlantic estimated only 4,000." - 4000 what? Adults, individuals?
• "In western Canadian waters, researchers with Fisheries and Oceans Canada observed five Seis together in the summer of 2017" - Un-capitalize "sei".
• "Mass death events for sei whales have been recorded for many years and evidence suggests endemic poisoning (red tide) causes may have caused mass deaths in prehistoric times." - "poisoning causes may have caused" sounds odd. Drop "causes" after the (red tide).
• IUCN lists the population as increasing - might be worth mentioning also.