Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century for Flemish whalers. The medieval Flemish, Basque and Norwegian whalers who were replaced in the 16th century by Dutch, English, Danes and Germans, took massive numbers of whales and dolphins and nearly depleted the right whales. This activity likely led to the extinction of the Atlantic population of the once common gray whale. By 1902 the whaling had ended. After being absent for 300 years a single gray whale returned, it probably was the first of many more to find its way through the now ice-free Northwest Passage.
Whaling
North Sea
North Sea | Whaling
Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century by by 1902 the whaling had ended No, by 1902 the whaling had ended Yes, whaling was an important economic activity . Yes
when will the new dunkirk film be released on dvd
user
18 December 2017
assistant
what is this film about?
user
Dunkirk evacuation of World War II
assistant
can you mention a few members of the cast?
user
Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles
assistant
where was it shot?
user
Dunkirk and Urk, Netherlands
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can you tell me anything about the latter place's past?
user
Until 1475 the High and Low Lordship of Urk and Emmeloord was in the hands of the Van Kuinre family
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what does the economy of this place depend upon?
user
Fishery
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is there any waterbody nearby ?
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North Sea
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what kind of marine organisms are found in this sea?
user
Cod, haddock, whiting, saithe, plaice, sole, mackerel, herring, pouting, sprat, and sandeel
assistant
what kind of minerals are found in this sea?
user
Sand, gravel and rolled pieces of amber
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does this place experiences any natural hazards?
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Storm surges and tsunamis
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are whales captured here?
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Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century for Flemish whalers. The medieval Flemish, Basque and Norwegian whalers who were replaced in the 16th century by Dutch, English, Danes and Germans, took massive numbers of whales and dolphins and nearly depleted the right whales. This activity likely led to the extinction of the Atlantic population of the once common gray whale. By 1902 the whaling had ended. After being absent for 300 years a single gray whale returned, it probably was the first of many more to find its way through the now ice-free Northwest Passage.
North Sea | Whaling
In 1977, one of a pair firstly sighted at beaches in Numadu was driven into port of Kumomi next day and was killed (although majority of medias even the museum itself claim that people tried their best to save the whale who stranded him/herself). A local museum (雲見くじら館) was later built specially for displaying the animal's carcass. In the late 1970s, at least two cow-calf pairs were confirmed during cetacean surveys by Institute of Cetacean Research in very nearby area of Suruga Bay and off Bentenjima Island in Enshunada Sea, and another whale was observed in exactly the same area (Kumomi) in 1996 as well.
North Pacific right whale | After the official protection
Historically, compliance with fisheries regulations regarding species caught and amount of the catch could be monitored when the fishing vessel returned to port, but with whaling factory ships, the whales were processed at sea, and the resulting products from all the baleen whales (whale oil, meat) were combined into a single commodity by the time the whaling ship reached port. As a consequence, a whaling operation that caught a protected right whale could cover up this infraction by combining the meat and oil with that from legal catches and misreporting it as a legal catch of a fin or several minke whales which would yield the same amount of product.
North Pacific right whale | Illegal Soviet whaling: 1962–1968
Whalers hunted by day, towing their catch to shore for flensing, operating in a fairly small area around the whaling stations. Although they weren't the primary targets, a few right whales were recorded in catches from these stations. A close-up photo of a North Pacific right whale taken at the Kyuquot whaling station, British Columbia in 1918 can be seen here.
North Pacific right whale | Industrial: 1850–1930s
North Atlantic fin whales are defined by the International Whaling Commission to exist in one of seven discrete population zones: Nova Scotia-New England, Newfoundland-Labrador, western Greenland, eastern Greenland-Iceland, North Norway, West Norway-Faroe Islands, and Ireland-Spain-United Kingdom-Portugal. Results of mark-and-recapture surveys have indicated that some movement occurs across the boundaries of these zones, suggesting that they are not entirely discrete and that some immigration and emigration does occur. Sigurjónsson estimated in 1995 that total pre-exploitation population size in the entire North Atlantic ranged between 50,000 and 100,000 animals, but his research is criticized for lack of supporting data and an explanation of his reasoning.
Fin whale | North Atlantic
More than 2,000 were caught in British Columbian waters between 1962 and 1967. Between 1957 and 1971, California shore stations processed 386 whales. Commercial Sei whaling ended in the eastern North Pacific in 1971.
Sei whale | North Pacific
Prior to the beginning of whaling, it is estimated that there were upwards of 100,000 northern bottlenose whales in the North Atlantic. Between 1850 and 1973, commercial hunting of the species, focused on populations found off Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Labrador, greatly reduced their numbers across their range. Current conservation concerns include threats from human activities such as disturbance related to offshore oil and gas developments and naval sonar, as well as entanglement, pollution, ingestion of plastic and ecosystem shifts related to climate change. The International Whaling Commission designated the northern bottlenose whale as a protected stock in 1977 and set a zero catch quota.
Northern bottlenose whale | Conservation
There is no direct evidence of illegal whaling in the North Pacific, although the acknowledged misreporting of whaling data by the Soviet Union means that catch data are not entirely reliable.
Sei whale | Conservation status
Historic whaling is the reason North Pacific right whales are so endangered today. The two critical periods of whaling were 1839 to 1849 (pelagic whaling, 90% American ships) and 1963 to 1968 (illegal Soviet whaling). The illegal Soviet whaling in the 1960s killed 514 right whales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska to plus 136 right whales in the Sea Okhotsk and the Kuril Islands. Although whaling was the principal threat to North Pacific right whales, there is no record of whalers targeting this species since the 1980s. Accordingly, this threat appears minor at this time.
North Pacific right whale | Whaling
As a result, surveys for whales and fisheries have generally not been able to comprehensively survey the region, particularly close to shore, as has been possible to do in the eastern North Pacific.
North Pacific right whale | Sea of Okhotsk and Western North Pacific
All these nations are part of the IWC, with Norway and Iceland rejecting the moratorium and continuing commercial whaling. Japan, being part of the IWC, whales under the Scientific Permit stated in Article VIII in the Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which allows the taking of whales for scientific research. Japan has had two main research programs: the Joint Aquatic Resources Permit Application (JARPA) and the Japanese Research Program in the North (JARPN). JARPN is focused in the North Pacific and JARPA around the Antarctic. JARPA mainly caught Antarctic minke whales, catching nearly 7,000; to a far lesser extent, they also caught fin whales.
Baleen whale | Conservation and management issues
Off the south coast of Japan, hunting lasted from winter to spring. Catches in Kōchi Prefecture between 1800 and 1835 totaled 259 whales. Catches at Ine on the Sea of Japan during the period 1700–1850 averaged less than 1 per year. Catches at Kawaijiri also on the Sea of Japan averaged 2 per year from 1699 to 1818. A few Native American tribes hunted in the North Pacific. Their catches were much lower than the Japanese. The Inuit along the western and northwestern coasts of Alaska have hunted whales for centuries. They prefer the bowhead whale, and occasionally the gray whale.
North Pacific right whale | Whaling before 1835
Before the arrival of the pelagic whaling fleet after 1835 into the range of the North Pacific right whale, the whale's population size, at least in the eastern part of its range, was probably at its original population size—in the range of 20,000–30,000 whales. The part of the whale population in the west around Japan may have been reduced from its original size as a result of the historic net whaling. There was essentially no aboriginal hunting for right whales along the west coast of North America by Native Americans in the 19th century or before. There was a small hunt for whales in the Aleutian Island by Aleuts but this was almost certainly so small that it did not reduce the original whale population size.
North Pacific right whale | Historic population
Note that most species of dolphins are omitted. Otherwise the main areas of missing data are: bycatch in countries other than Japan and Korea (generally much smaller), narwhals before 1954; belugas in Canada and USA before 1970, and in Nunavut (Canada) for all years; belugas in USSR in Bering, East Siberian and Laptev Seas and Sea of Okhotsk outside Amur River area.
History of whaling | Catches by country and year
Hunters claim that most journalists lack knowledge of the catch methods used to capture and kill the whales.
Whaling | Faroe Islands
The North Pacific right whale ("Eubalaena japonica") is a very large, thickset baleen whale species that is extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific population, which summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 40 animals. A western population that summers near the Commander Islands, the coast of Kamchatka, along the Kuril Islands and in the Sea of Okhotsk is thought to number in the low hundreds. Before commercial whaling in the North Pacific (i.e. pre-1835) there were probably over 20,000 right whales in the region. The taking of right whales in commercial whaling has been prohibited by one or more international treaties since 1935.
North Pacific right whale | Introduction
Because whales generally have slow growth rates, are slow to reach sexual maturity, and have a low reproductive output, population recovery has been very slow. A number of whales are still subject to direct hunting, despite the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling set under the terms of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). There are only two nations remaining which sanction commercial whaling: Norway, where several hundred common minke whales are harvested each year; and Iceland, where quotas of 150 fin whales and 100 minke whales per year are set. Japan also harvests several hundred Antarctic and North Pacific minke whales each year, ostensibly for scientific research in accordance with the moratorium.
Marine mammal | Exploitation
Entire European regions including French coasts, Hebrides, North and Baltic Seas, and further north up to Swedish, Norwegian and Svalbard areas were once ranged by whales. Phenology of catch records in the early twentieth century in Nordic countries shows that whale presences in northern waters was at peak in June. In Ireland, catches were concentrated in the first half of June until 1930s and preceded catch in the Scottish bases of the Hebrides which were concentrated in the second half of June and July, and this indicates that those whales were likely to migrate along Irish coasts. Of all modern whaling grounds in European waters, Hebrides and the Shetland Islands were the center of whaling in the early 20th century, and any records afterwards these catches became scarce in eastern Atlantic where only two cow-calf pairs had been documented.
North Atlantic right whale | Eastern population
Before 1840, the range of the North Pacific right whale was extensive and had probably remained the same for at least hundreds of years. It could be found from the Sea of Okhotsk in the west to the coast of Canada. Our knowledge of the historic distribution of this whale comes almost entirely from the logbooks of the pelagic whalers (and the records of the shore-based whaling in Japan.) The first such effort were a series of charts known subsequently as the Maury "Whale Charts". In the late 1830s, the U.S. Navy sought wind and current information for areas of the oceans outside the trade routes regularly traveled by merchant ships.
North Pacific right whale | Historic distribution
The World Wide Fund for Nature says that 90% of all northern right whales killed by human activities are from ship collision, calling for restrictions on the movement of shipping in certain areas. Noise pollution threatens the existence of cetaceans. Large ships and boats make a tremendous amount of noise that falls into the same frequency range of many whales. By-catch also kills more animals than hunting. Some scientists believe pollution to be a factor. Moreover, since the IWC moratorium, there have been several instances of illegal whale hunting by IWC nations. In 1994, the IWC reported evidence from genetic testing of whale meat and blubber for sale on the open market in Japan in 1993.
Whaling | Sustainability
If the whale does not appear to die immediately the animal is hauled up to the boat where whalers with rifles will attempt to finish the animal with a shot to the head. In rare cases, a second harpoon shot may be necessary, but this is quite rare. When the dead minke whale is alongside of the boat a wire or rope is secured to the tail and the animal is pulled onto the deck through a gate on the gunwale. The whale is butchered at sea and the meat and blubber is then packed in ice and stored on the boat to be processed later on shore.
Whaling in Norway | Production
Two Norwegian whaling stations were constructed in Voe at the beginning of the 20th century - the Zetland Whale Fishing Company, set up by Christian Nielsen; and the Norrona Whale Fishing Company, set up by Peder Bogen - opened in April and June 1903 respectively, being the first whaling stations based in UK territory. Whales caught by harpoon were dragged in by steamers. They were hauled up a wooden slip with a steam winch to take them ashore. They would then be cut up using blades on long handles called flensing knives. Species caught included fin whales, sperm whales, bowhead whales and bottlenose whales.
Voe, Northmavine | Whaling
Oil and gas exploration and production in the right whale's range could threaten the species' survival as a result of oil spills, other pollution, ship collisions and noise. In its 2006 Status Review, NMFS notes that the development of the Russian oil fields off the Sakhalin Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk "is occurring within the habitat" of the western population of North Pacific right whales. There have been recent oil spills in the Bering Sea. In 2005, the wreck of the M/V "Selendang Ayu" near Unalaska released approximately of fuel oil and of diesel into the Bering Sea. The exploration phase of oil development is characterized by numerous ships engaged in seismic testing to map undersea geological formations.
North Pacific right whale | Oil exploration, extraction, transport and spills
A net pen was in place, filled with wild Pacific salmon caught by local First Nations fishermen under a specially granted fishing permit. As promised, all 73 of the wild salmon caught by the Namgis were physically inspected for metal hooks.
Springer (killer whale) | Return to Johnstone Strait
Testing involves blasts of noise which echo off the undersea rock formations. These explosions have been banned in the Beaufort Sea during the time of year that bowheads are present. In its 2006 Status Review, NMFS concludes: "In general, the impact of noise from shipping or industrial activities on the communication, behavior and distribution of right whales remains unknown."
North Pacific right whale | Oil exploration, extraction, transport and spills
On the outbreak of the Second World War the Salvesen fleet headed south for the Antarctic summer, returning in 1940 to find that their Norwegian home ports were now occupied by Germany. The following season, after three Norwegian factory ships were captured by the commerce raider "Pinguin" the government ordered the suspension of all whaling for the duration of the war, despite Salvensen's protests that whale oil was a valuable food source. The entire British whaling fleet was dispersed, with the factory ships leased to the Ministry of Transport as oil tankers and military transports, and the whalecatchers leased to serve as patrol ships and minesweepers.
Harold Salvesen | Whaling
These ship-strikes and entanglements in fishing gear may contribute severely to preventing the future re-establishment of the species in the former habitats.
Moreton Bay | Southern right whales
In its 2013 evaluation of the threats to survival of the North Pacific right whale, NOAA examined the possible impacts of entanglement in fishing gear and ingestion of marine debris. Entanglement in fishing gear is a major threat to the survival of the North Atlantic right whale. Marine debris includes, among other items, abandoned or lost fishing gear and small plastic items that could be ingested. There is year around commercial fishing in the range of the North Pacific right whale in both the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. and also in the western part of its range around Kamchatka, the sea of Okhotsk, and the Japan.
North Pacific right whale | Entanglement in fishing gear and interaction with marine debris
Greener's guns were also used. Most bowheads and rights were lost when the harpoon drew out of the blubber or the whaleline was lost or parted. Most bowheads that sank were able to be saved in shallow waters, while the majority of rights that sank were unable to be retrieved in the deep waters they were typically hunted in. Men couldn't strike or fasten to whales when they settled underwater (sank straight down), slackened their blubber (made a hollow in their back so the harpoon would bounce off), or were too "wild", "shy", or "gallied".
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Catch
A team of "National Geographic" and tourism companies encountered three whales at Paramushir and Shumshu, succeeded in swimming and taken underwater images, and aerial footage using a drone in 2017.
North Pacific right whale | Kuril Islands
Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act. There are about 400 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean—they migrate between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas off Georgia and Florida, an ocean area with heavy shipping traffic. In the eastern North Atlantic, on the other hand—with a total population reaching into the low teens at most—scientists believe that they may already be functionally extinct. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear, which together account for nearly half of all North Atlantic right whale mortality since 1970, are their two greatest threats to recovery.
North Atlantic right whale | Introduction
The later "factory ships" that processed carcasses while at sea further transformed pelagic whaling. Right whales continued to be taken, although uncommonly due to their rarity. Japan continued hunting right whales through the beginning of World War II. Afterward, General Douglas MacArthur, head of Allied occupation forces, encouraged the Japanese to resume whaling to feed their hungry population. Japan then joined the International Whaling Commission which barred the hunting of right whales. Except for 13 killed under "scientific permits", in accordance with IWC rules, Japanese whalers have honored this prohibition. Possibly, several hundred whales (mostly unreported or unrecorded) were taken by Japanese until the late-1970s, including mass captures off southeastern Hokkaido and off Akkeshi.
North Pacific right whale | After the official protection
They hunted at or beyond the northern limits of the right whale's range.
North Pacific right whale | Whaling before 1835
Collisions with commercial ships are the greatest threat to North Atlantic right whales. Both summer feeding ranges and winter calving grounds are located in busy shipping channels. "E. japonica" does not frequent shipping channels. In the North Pacific, this threat is probably smaller, but it still exists. All larger cetaceans passing through under threats of being struck by vessels on various sea-lanes in Asian nations, especially in the Tsushima Strait. Japanese Coast Guard has started to collect sighting records of large whales in the area, but majorities of species identities of each records are unspecified in their log, hence it is unknown if any right whales have ever been actually sighted.
North Pacific right whale | Ship collisions
The primary species hunted are minke whales, belugas, narwhals, and pilot whales, which are some of the smallest species of whales. There are also smaller numbers killed of gray whales, sei whales, fin whales, bowhead whales, Bryde's whales, sperm whales and humpback whales. Recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 103,000 minkes in the northeast Atlantic. With respect to the populations of Antarctic minke whales, as of January 2010, the IWC states that it is "unable to provide reliable estimates at the present time" and that a "major review is underway by the Scientific Committee." Whale oil is used little today and modern whaling is primarily done for food: for pets, fur farms, sled dogs and humans, and for making carvings of tusks, teeth and vertebrae.
Whaling | Modernity
Some eastern sightings have been officially confirmed to be of vagrants from the western population. A right whale seen off Cape Cod in May 1999 was later seen in the Kvænangen fjord in Troms, Northern Norway in September 1999. This individual was later confirmed to be "Porter", an adult male in the catalog (No.1133). He was seen again back in Cape Cod in winter 2000, having traveled for over , making this the longest ever traveling record of right whales. The area vicinity to Scandinavian Peninsula was once in the historical "North Cape Ground", one of the major whaling grounds for this species in the 17th century.
North Atlantic right whale | Vagrants from the Western Population
Due to the heavy human populations and high level of industrialization along its shores, the wildlife of the North Sea has suffered from pollution, overhunting, and overfishing. Flamingos and pelicans were once found along the southern shores of the North Sea, but became extinct over the 2nd millennium. Walruses frequented the Orkney Islands through the mid-16th century, as both Sable Island and Orkney Islands lay within its normal range. Gray whales also resided in the North Sea but were driven to extinction in the Atlantic in the 17th century Other species have dramatically declined in population, though they are still found.
North Sea | Biodiversity and conservation
As the NMFS Status Review notes: "Zooplankton abundance and density in the Bering Sea has been shown to be highly variable, affected by climate, weather, and ocean processes and in particular ice extent." A third risk is an inability to find mating partners. With so few whales in such a large area, simply finding a mate is difficult. Right whales generally travel alone or in very small groups. In other oceans, breeding females attract mates by calling. The success of this strategy depends upon having males within hearing range. As expanding shipping traffic increases the ocean's background noise, the audible range for such mating calls has decreased.
North Pacific right whale | Unsustainably small population
After World War I, the major whaling nations of the time (Norway, Great Britain, United States) became increasingly concerned the depletion of blue whales and other whale species, and entered into first international whaling treaty in 1931, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which became effective in 1935 after ratification by the member nations. The treaty banned the hunting of all right whales. However, Japan and the Soviet Union did not ratify the treay, and thus were not bound by it. Attempts to bring the other major whaling nations under an international regime stalled until after World War II.
North Pacific right whale | International law
Norway's whaling today is limited to the minke whale, which are killed using explosive penthrite grenade harpoons, which also accounts for more than 90% of the catch in Norwegian waters since the 1920s. While not actively supporting whaling, several Norwegian environmental groups have stated that they oppose extreme measures, specifically sabotage, against the whaling industry.
Whaling in Norway | Support
Adolph Neilsen of Tønesberg brought modern whaling to Newfoundland through his Cabot Steam Whaling Company in 1898. With a shore station in Notre Dame Bay, the company caught blue, fin, sei, and humpback whales. To continue the hunt in winter months, another station was set up on Hermitage Bay. A local competitor established two additional stations in 1901 but was completely dependent on Norwegian equipment and gunners. After the first season, local fishermen voiced opposition to the whalers with fears that their fisheries would be ruined, nets destroyed by panicked whales, and those who lived close to the shore stations complained of the stench.
Whaling in Norway | Newfoundland
Stranded whales, or drift whales that died at sea and washed ashore, provided useful resources such as meat, blubber (rendered into oil) and bone to coastal communities. Eponymous coastal features include Drift Whale Bay within Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park on the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island. Whaling on the Pacific Northwest Coast goes back millennia, and is deeply intertwined with the culture of the indigenous peoples there. The chiefs built private sacred places, called whalers' washing houses, where they could ritually purify themselves. The best known of these is the Yuquot Whalers Shrine, associated with the great Mowachaht chief Maquinna.
Whaling in Canada | Pre-contact
From 1988 to 1990 and again from 1992 to 1994 Norway caught minke whales under scientific permit and resumed commercial whaling of the species in 1993. They typically catch 450 to 600 individuals a year, with 464 being taken in 2012. Minke whales were first caught off Iceland in 1914 by the powered 4-ton fishing vessel "Margrét IS 314", which was mounted with a 1.5 inch bore harpoon gun – this was replaced in 1923 with a 2-inch bore harpoon gun manufactured in Norway. Later other vessels joined the trade. Operations were limited to coastal waters, normally within 30 nautical miles of shore.
Common minke whale | North Atlantic
The first news story about the trapped whales was in Anchorage a week later. Rescuers tried to borrow a barge from Prudhoe Bay, to break the ice and clear a path, but the barge was locked in. The whales' plight gained more attention from the media as journalists called North Slope Borough and flew to the site. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a team of whale biologists, and the United States Department of State requested the help of two icebreakers from the Soviet Union who immediately responded to aid the rescue, the "Vladimir Arseniev" and the "Admiral Makarov".
Operation Breakthrough | Rescue effort
Norway registered an objection to the International Whaling Commission moratorium and is thus not bound by it. Commercial whaling ceased for a five-year period to allow a small scientific catch for gauging the stock's sustainability; whaling subsequently resumed in 1993. Minke whales are the only legally hunted species. Catches have fluctuated between 487 animals in 2000 to 592 in 2007. For the year 2011 the quota is set at 1,286 minke whales. The catch is made solely from the Northeast Atlantic minke whale population, which is estimated at 102,000.
Whaling | Norway
In 1903 the Norrona station had around six boilers, of which some were up to tall. While some work was made available for the locals, there was push-back against the factories due to the smell of the operations and pollution left upon the nearby beaches. Those engaged in the herring fishing also believed that the waste products of processing the whales (some of which ended up in the sea) attracted sharks that frightened off the herring shoals. A committee to investigate these claims was set up in 1904, however it wasn't able to determine a connection between the whaling and a downturn in the herring catch.
Voe, Northmavine | Whaling
Northern bottlenose whales are still killed in the Faroe Islands. Faroese regulations only allow the killing of bottlenose whales which have beached themselves and cannot be driven out again. Long term statistics indicate that the most frequent beachings are in the villages of Hvalba and Sandvík on Suðuroy. The northern bottlenose whale is listed under Canada's "Species at Risk Act" as endangered, as data deficient under the IUCN red list and on Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). In addition, the northern bottlenose whale is covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS).
Northern bottlenose whale | Conservation
There are remote (hence less pressures from impacts of human activities) and unstudied areas still possessing less – damaged environments where right whales were historically distributed, scattering among North Pacific and adjacent waters. These include northern proportions of Sea of Japan within Russian, North Korean, and Japanese EEZ such as along Primorsky Krai like Rudnaya bay and Peter the Great Bay, northern Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands such as at East Korea Bay, Ulleungdo, Oki Islands, pacific islands, atolls, seamounts, and guyots in lower latitude such as Ladd Seamount, north of Northern Mariana Islands, north of Babuyan Islands, small, outer islands and atolls of Taiwan and those in South China Sea such as Pengjia Islet, Green Island, Lanyu, adjacent to Kenting and Dapeng Bay like Xiaoliuqiu, Dongsha Atoll, and vicinity to Marshall Islands, and Midway Islands.
North Pacific right whale | Western North Pacific
Small numbers were taken off the Iberian Peninsula, beginning in the 1920s by Spanish whalers, off the Nova Scotian shelf in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Canadian whalers, and off the coast of West Greenland from the 1920s to the 1950s by Norwegian and Danish whalers.
Sei whale | North Atlantic
The first written records attest to the active hunting of minke whales off Norway by 1100 A.D. By 1240 they began utilizing iron darts fired from crossbows that had been treated with the tissue of dead sheep infected with the bacterium "Clostridium". Introducing this infectious agent to a wound weakened the whale and after a couple days the men would return and lance it to death. This method of whaling continued to be used until the 1880s. Norwegian catching of minke whales from small fishing vessels started off Møre, western Norway, in the 1920s. It had spread north to Salten by 1932 and all along the Norwegian coast and to Bear Island, Spitsbergen, and the Barents Sea by the late 1930s – the latter area, particularly the southeastern region east to Novaya Zemlya, was one of the most important whaling grounds, with over 2,400 whales being caught there in 1949.
Common minke whale | North Atlantic
Levels of toxic pollutants were lower in Antarctic whales than those sampled in the Northern hemisphere.
Whaling in Japan | JARPA
In 1732 it offered an annual bounty of twenty shillings (one pound sterling) a ton for all whaling vessels over 200 tons fitted out in Great Britain, the relevant legislation coming into force in 1733. The bounty was increased to thirty shillings a ton in 1740, but even then only four or five British vessels sailed north each year. Most of these were owned by merchants who imported whale oil.
Whaling in the United Kingdom | The northern whale fishery
As the "right" whale continued to float long after being killed, it was possible to 'flense' or strip the whale of blubber without having to take it on board ship. Combined with the right whale's lack of speed through water, feeding habits, and coastal habitat, they were easy to catch, even for whalers equipped only with wooden boats and hand-held harpoons. Basques were the first to commercially hunt this species. They began whaling in the Bay of Biscay as early as the eleventh century. The whales were hunted initially for whale oil, but, as meat preservation technology improved, their value as food increased.
North Atlantic right whale | Whaling
Surveys near the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea indicated a substantial increase in the local abundance of fin whales between 1975–1978 and 1987–1989. In 1984, the entire population was estimated to be less than 38% of its historic carrying capacity. Fin whales might have started returning to the coastal waters off British Columbia (a sighting occurred in Johnstone Strait in 2011) and Kodiak Island. Size of the local population migrating to Hawaiian Archipelago is unknown. Historically, several other wintering grounds were scattered in the North Pacific in the past, such as off the Northern Mariana Islands, Bonin Islands, and Ryukyu Islands.
Fin whale | North Pacific
The most detailed showed by month and 5° of latitude and longitude: (a) the number of days on which whaling ships were in that sector; (b) the number of days on which they saw right whales; and (c) the number of days on which the saw sperm whales. In the North Pacific, these charts summarize more than 8,000 days on which the whalers encountered right whales and the searching effort by month and sector. The maps thus provide a crude measure of the relative abundance of right whales by geographic sector and month, controlled for the very non-random searching effort of the whalers.
North Pacific right whale | Historic distribution
Modern whaling, using factory ships and catchers fitted with bow-mounted cannon that fired explosive harpoons, continued into the 20th century and was mainly focused on the Antarctic and nearby islands where shore stations had also been established. The collapse of whale stocks in the 1960s, due to overfishing, saw Britain abandon the industry after three and a half centuries of involvement.
Whaling in the United Kingdom | Introduction
In March 2008, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans stated the previous estimates in the eastern Arctic had undercounted, with a new estimate of 14,400 animals (range 4,800–43,000). These larger numbers correspond to prewhaling estimates, indicating the population has fully recovered. However, if climate change substantially shrinks sea ice, these whales could be threatened by increased shipping traffic. The status of other populations is less well known. About 1,200 were off West Greenland in 2006, while the Svalbard population may only number in the tens. However, the numbers have been increasing in recent years.
Bowhead whale | Baffin Bay and Davis Strait
Off the west coast of Canada, the Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve covers . It is "a primary feeding habitat" of the North Pacific population. Their critical habitat overlaps with tanker shipping routes between Canada and its eastern trade partners. In 2005 the North Pacific population was listed as threatened under Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA). On April 19, 2014 the Department of the Environment recommended an amendment to SARA to downgrade their status off the Pacific coast from "threatened" to "species of special concern". According to Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the North Pacific humpback population increased at about 4% annually from 1992 to 2008.
Humpback whale | Canada
In the 1970s, four right whales were taken by Chinese (or actually by Japanese) and Korean whalers. At least two whales were taken off Haiyang in the Yellow Sea in by Japanese whalers in 1944, and another pair was also taken by Japanese whalers in north of the island in January 1973 where both of these were later made to be specimen where smaller specimen became the only specimen (with skins and baleens) of the species in the world at the Dalian Natural History Museum, and the larger individual is now on the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History. reaching around 16–17.1m, and were later made to be specimens for exhibition at several locations.
North Pacific right whale | After the official protection
A comprehensive review of sighting data and population estimates in 2001 concluded that "none of the published estimates of abundance relating to North Pacific right whales can be regarded as reliable ... [most] estimates appear to be little more than conjecture ... [and] no quantitative data exist to confirm any of these estimates."
North Pacific right whale | Bering Sea and North East Pacific
The official language there was Norwegian, indicating the main source of labour. A second British firm, the Southern Whaling and Sealing Company of North Shields, was established in 1911 to operate at Prince Olav Harbour on South Georgia.
Whaling in the United Kingdom | Modern whaling
Larger individuals of both sexes primarily occur further north (off Svalbard and in the Barents Sea), while smaller individuals mainly occur to the south (e.g. along the Norwegian coast from Lofoten south, in an area once known as a summering ground for newly weaned calves). In the Barents Sea, over 40 per cent of females are mature, with the vast majority being pregnant (94.4%). In the western North Pacific, larger animals are typically found in higher latitudes (e.g. in the Okhotsk Sea, south of the Kuril Islands, and around the Commander and western Aleutian Islands), while smaller animals, especially females, dominate in lower latitudes (e.g.
Common minke whale | Segregation
If the whale is struck and not killed instantly by the explosive tipped harpoon, a second harpoon may be used or the whale may be shot with a rifle until dead. A past method of using a second harpoon to electrocute whales is now forbidden by the IWC. Environmental groups have reported whales being dragged backward and drowned. Each caught whale is secured to the side of a whale catcher with rope. Lines are later used to transfer the whales from the whale catcher to the factory ship. Whales are next winched onto the factory ship through a slipway at the stern of the vessel.
Whaling in Japan | Pelagic whaling
International conflict became inevitable, spilling over all the continents of the New World. Spain resented the intrusion of British vessels into the Pacific, especially when they engaged in clandestine trading at Spanish colonies in South America. In 1789, rising tension over the issue saw Spanish warships, thousands of miles away on the west coast of what is now Canada, seize British vessels engaged in the maritime fur trade in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. The resulting Nootka Crisis was an international incident that brought both nations to the brink of war. War was averted but tensions remained high. Australia was also in their sights.
Whaling in the United Kingdom | The southern whale fishery
However, it has become known that Japanese observers, which were frequent aboard Soviet whaling ships, agreed to “swap statistics” with the Soviets to avoid being caught, and in this fashion the Soviets could avoid being exposed for whaling violations.
Whaling in the Soviet Union and Russia | North Pacific whaling
Boats chased whales in the fog, tracking them by listening for their blows; when they caught one, they had to anchor it until the fog cleared. Boats were forced to follow the shoreline during thick fogs. Fog also clung to clothing in big drops, chilling the men thoroughly. In the spring, swell, winds, and gales from the south broke up the pack ice offshore. In July and August calms and light airs prevailed in the bays, with few gales in the former month and the occasional gale in the latter one; but they became common in September and October, forcing most ships to leave the bays as it became too rugged to whale.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Fog and wind
Since 1978, whales within New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone have been protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. Killing a whale or other cetacean is punishable by up to six months imprisonment, or a fine of up to NZ$250,000. Efforts are now often made to save whales that have stranded or have become entangled in marine debris. There is a vocal antiwhaling sentiment in New Zealand. The Government regularly attends the International Whaling Commission meetings and supports the moratorium on whaling, as well as advocating for the creation of whale sanctuaries. In 2010, Pete Bethune, an antiwhaling activist, was detained by Japanese whalers when he boarded a whaling ship in the southern oceans.
Whaling in New Zealand | Conservation
Watson was held in the Netherlands on a Norwegian-issued Interpol extradition notice, but after 80 days in detention the notice was denied. In July 1994, Sea Shepherd operated the ship "Whales Forever" off the coast of Norway to protest the renewed commercial whaling of minke whales. The ship was intercepted by the Norwegian Coast Guard patrol ship "Andenes". The "Whales Forever" and the "Andenes", collided in disputed circumstances. The "Andenes" fired two warning shots, claimed to be non-explosive. The Norwegian Coast Guard warned that they would follow the Sea Shepherd vessel to the Shetland Islands if necessary to arrest the activists.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society operations | Norwegian whaling (1992, 1994)
In August 2015 BDMLR was contact by the Centre for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Maine in the US to assist as part of the global response network for large whale disentanglement as member of the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network (ALWDN) to a Humpback whale ("Megaptera novaeangliae") in Iceland that was entangled in fisheries debris at the time suspected and later confirmed to be monofilament netting panels and lead weighted line from a Gill net array. This was following requests from local whale watching companies and NGO's following a failed but valiant attempts by local Coast Guard personnel to free the free swimming but fatally entangled creature.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue | Operation Nettie
In adopting a Recovery Plan for the North Pacific right whale, the United States government (NOAA) described its evaluation of the various threats to the continued survival of the species.
North Pacific right whale | Threats
The population of the North Atlantic right whale ("Eubalaena glacialis") has declined since 1970 due to commercial whaling and heavy vessel traffic in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although commercial whaling has been contributing to the protection the species since 1935, the population has failed to make a full recovery. With an average population of 400, the North Atlantic right whale is currently on the IUCN Red ListI, classified as an endangered species.
Removal of Sunset Provision for vessel restrictions | History
For comparison, a population of 20,000 or more animals is comparable to the current and presumably early 19th century population of Gray whales in the North Pacific
North Pacific right whale | Historic population
2008k). Other scientists also wrote that the Japanese estimate was based on faulty methodology and the population was likely to be only half as large or smaller. After a gap of 14 years, Japanese researchers were able to resurvey this area in 2005 and apparently saw similar numbers of right whales in the same area.
North Pacific right whale | The Sea of Okhotsk
However, a few sightings are regular between Norway, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands and even Italy and Sicily; at least the Norway individuals come from the Western stock.
Right whale | North Atlantic right whale
Sperm whale strandings are known to have occurred in the North Sea for centuries, and the incidents may be increasing with louder ship noise.
Drift whale | Species
The site has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 71), following a proposal by Chile and Norway to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. It comprises all pre-1970 remains on the shore of the bay. These include artefacts and structural remains from the early whaling period (1906–1912) associated with Captain Adolfus Andresen of the Chilean Sociedad Ballenera de Magallanes, the Norwegian Hektor Whaling Station (1912–1931), the period of British scientific and mapping activity (1944–1969), and a cemetery containing 35 burials and a memorial to ten men lost at sea. It also commemorates and acknowledges the historic value of other events that occurred there.
Whalers Bay (South Shetland Islands) | Historic site
In Japan, several whale species have been targets of illegal captures, including humpback, minke, sperm whales, western gray, the endangered North Pacific right, and northern fin whale while utilizing harpoons for dolphin hunts or intentionally drive whales into nets. Reports are later filed with administrative organs or research institutions as cases of "entanglements where fishermen tried their best to save whales". Products from internationally protected species' meat can also be found on markets even today mostly originating as "by-products" of entanglements, and there has been a case in which it was revealed that at least some humpbacks with other species were illegally hunted in EEZs of anti-whaling nations such as off the coast of Mexico or South Africa, and the whalers tried to transport the catch to Japan by hiring vessels from other countries and even trying to go on overland routes within other nations.
Whaling in Japan | Whaling in coastal Japan
In 1827, a blue whale beached itself off the coast of Ostend. Whales were used as attractions in museums and traveling exhibitions. Whalers from the 17th to 19th centuries depicted whales in drawings and recounted tales of their occupation. Although they knew that whales were harmless giants, they described battles with harpooned animals. These included descriptions of sea monsters, including huge whales, sharks, sea snakes, giant squid and octopuses. Among the first whalers who described their experiences on whaling trips was Captain William Scoresby from Great Britain, who published the book "Northern Whale Fishery", describing the hunt for northern baleen whales.
Cetacea | Middle Ages to the 19th century
Levels of toxic pollutants were lower in Antarctic whales than those sampled in the northern hemisphere.
Institute of Cetacean Research | JARPA
As above mentioned, the existence of a possible third population, ranging from near Iceland or Greenland in the north to Bermudas or Bahamas in the south, has been mentioned by several biologists. Some right whales are now said to live primarily in Icelandic waters and occasionally join to the western population. In July 2003, during a search for the possibility of right whales inhabiting the historical Cape Farewell region carried out by the research team of the New England Aquarium with Jean Lemire and a Quebec film company, a female right whale – later named "Hidalgo" due to a scar mark on her head resembling a horse – was recorded in the Irminger Sea, southwest of the Iceland coast.
North Atlantic right whale | Possible central population
In Canada, some right whales had been caught in the early 20th century from whaling stations off northern Vancouver Island. There had been no sightings of right whales in Canadian waters since the large illegal Soviet kill in the 1960s with two exceptions of a pair confirmed off Haida Gwaii at – in 1970 and two large whales seen on Swiftsure Bank off Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1983 though their species was unconfirmed. There were no officially-confirmed records until the sighting of a single right whale on June 9 and 13, 2013, south of Langara Island at the north end of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), in British Columbia (~ 54°N, 132°W) followed by the second sighting of a different individual at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca four months later.
North Pacific right whale | Canadian regulation
Large-scale Soviet whaling in the North Pacific Ocean did not begin until 1963 with the launching of the "Dalniy Vostok" and "Vladivostok" fleets, but it was no less intense than in the Antarctic. In its last years of operations, the ageing "Aleut" fleet caught over 1,200 humpback whales in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay, while the two large pelagic fleets killed over 2,800 humpbacks around the Aleutian Islands in the early 1960s, decimating the population to levels from which it has only recently recovered. Blue whales and fin whales suffered too, and hundreds of them were taken from 1963–1971 and almost none reported.
Whaling in the Soviet Union and Russia | North Pacific whaling
Based on 19th century whaling records, the coastline from 10 miles north of Puntilla de las Raimas, called "Goree" Bay by whalers, to 20 miles north of Cabo Barbas and possibly a broader range was the only known wintering or calving ground for the eastern North Atlantic population of North Atlantic right whales. These whales are now thought to be either extinct or in the low-tens of animals left at best. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cintra Bay Ground was one of three or four major grounds for right whale hunting in the North Atlantic, along with the south-eastern coastal United States, Cape Farewell in Greenland, and probably the Icelandic region, and also being one of two winter-spring fields along with the US coasts.
Cintra Bay | Cetaceans
In the North Pacific, the total reported catch by commercial whalers was 72,215 between 1910 and 1975; the majority were taken after 1947. Shore stations in Japan and Korea processed 300–600 each year between 1911 and 1955. In 1959, the Japanese catch peaked at 1,340. Heavy exploitation in the North Pacific began in the early 1960s, with catches averaging 3,643 per year from 1963 to 1974 (total 43,719; annual range 1,280–6,053). In 1971, after a decade of high catches, it became scarce in Japanese waters, ending commercial whaling in 1975. Off the coast of North America, sei whales were hunted off British Columbia from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, when the number of whales captured dropped to around 14 per year.
Sei whale | North Pacific
It was calculated that preventing the deaths of just two females per year would enable the population to stabilize. The data suggests, therefore, that human sources of mortality may have a greater effect relative to population growth rates of North Atlantic right whales than for other whales. The principal factors known to be retarding growth and recovery of the population are ship strikes and entanglement with fishing gear.
North Atlantic right whale | Threats
Boats also had to anchor or tie whales to other ships when there was a head tide or it was too rugged to lie by them. Anchored whales left untended could be lost due to the ice or tides.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Factors
Some vessels of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society were intervening in the Japanese whale-hunt, calling it illegal and in contravention of an Australian Federal Court ruling prohibiting whaling in Australian Antarctic Territory. Japan hunts using a loophole that allows for a very limited lethal scientific research. Camera crews onboard three Sea Shepherd vessels recorded video of the incident for a TV series called "Whale Wars". The "Bob Barker" and "Sam Simon" had repeatedly forced their way between the "Nisshin Maru" whaling factory ship and the supply tanker, causing cheers by the crew onboard the "Sun Laurel". The next day, they blocked another refueling attempt, and in retaliation, Captain Tomoyuki Ogawa of "Nisshin Maru" squeezed the "Bob Barker" vessel against the "Sun Laurel" four times, which caused damage to the "Sun Laurel" davit of the primary lifeboat and the crane used to launch the secondary life rafts.
Sun Laurel | 2013 incident
The North Sea is also home to marine mammals. Common seals, and harbour porpoises can be found along the coasts, at marine installations, and on islands. The very northern North Sea islands such as the Shetland Islands are occasionally home to a larger variety of pinnipeds including bearded, harp, hooded and ringed seals, and even walrus. North Sea cetaceans include various porpoise, dolphin and whale species.
North Sea | Marine mammals
In the past this area was the US whaling industry's capital, particularly Nantucket, an island just off the coast of Massachusetts. Though whaling has been banned for many years, and strict laws prohibit molestation of these large wild mammals, it is not unknown for the whales to approach whale watching boats uninvited, particularly curious calves and juveniles: it is not unknown in particular, for example, for juvenile humpbacks to approach the boat and spyhop to get a better look at the humans aboard. In recent years it is also not uncommon to see these animals playing and feeding in harbors, including New York City or Boston where fish species of interest to the whales have lately returned in astonishing numbers.
Whale watching | Northwest Atlantic
The total historical North Pacific population was estimated at 42,000 to 45,000 before the start of whaling. Of this, the population in the eastern portion of the North Pacific was estimated to be 25,000 to 27,000. By 1975, the estimate had declined to between 8,000 and 16,000. Surveys conducted in 1991, 1993, 1996, and 2001 produced estimates between 1,600 and 3,200 off California and 280 and 380 off Oregon and Washington. The minimum estimate for the California-Oregon-Washington population, as defined in the "U.S. Pacific Marine Mammal Stock Assessments: 2005", is about 2,500. Surveys in coastal waters of British Columbia in summers 2004 and 2005 produced abundance estimates of approximately 500 animals.
Fin whale | North Pacific
The situation was especially bad in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, where the population was reduced to less than 30 animals overall and does not appear to have made any recovery since the illegal Soviet whaling. The Okhotsk Sea populations, despite numbering only a few hundred whales, may be slowly recovering. Initially, biologist Nikolai Doroschenko only discovered 372 illegally killed right whales from the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea in his original data (1994); it was not until 2012 that records of nearly 300 additional illegal kills from the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kurils region were found as well.
Whaling in the Soviet Union and Russia | North Pacific whaling
Between 1848 and 1902, American whaleships hunted whales off Sakhalin. They cruised for bowhead and gray whales to the north and right whales to the east and south. On 7 June 1855, the ship "Jefferson" (396 tons), of New London, was wrecked on Cape Levenshtern, on the northeastern side of the island, during a fog. All hands were saved as well as 300 barrels of whale oil.
Sakhalin | Whaling
1,477 killer whales were hunted in Japanese waters between 1948 and 1972, 545 of them around Hokkaido. Killer whale encounters in Japanese waters are now rare. In 1997 a group of ten killer whales was corralled by Japanese fisherman banging on iron rods and using water bombs to disorient the animals and force them into a bay near Taiji, Wakayama, a technique known as dolphin drive hunting which these villagers have been practising for years. The orcas were held in the bay for two days before being auctioned to Japanese marine parks. Five animals were released, and the other five transported via road or sea to the aquariums.
Captive killer whales | North Western Pacific captures
Although not in large numbers, cetaceans are known to live in or to visit the fjord. Harbour porpoises and dolphins are more commonly observed, and larger species such as minke whales, sperm whales, and beluga whales can also be seen. In recent years, humpback whales started making comebacks to local waters to feed, and there had been a rare observation of a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale that have become possibly functional extinct in eastern North Atlantic, stayed for several weeks in the fjord, indicating this area was once a part of historical feeding ground for right whales as well.
Kvænangen (fjord) | Wildlife
Despite the fact commercial whaling is generally a thing of the past since the passage of the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, a number of marine mammals are still subject to direct hunting. The only remaining commercial hunting of whales is by Norway where several hundred northeastern North Atlantic minke whales are harvested each year, and Iceland, which takes approximately 150 North Atlantic fin whales and less than 50 minke whales each year. Japan also harvests several hundred Antarctic and North Pacific minke whales each year under the guise of scientific research. However, the illegal trade of whale and dolphin meat is a significant market in some countries.
Marine mammals as food | History
Watson said that the boats were "victims of magnetic mines, one of them homemade, which had been planted by the same trio that destroyed the "Sierra"." Sea Shepherd does show these vessels on the tally of vessels "sunk" on the side of the "Farley Mowat" and the back of some Sea Shepherd shirts. The whalers "Susan" and "Theresa "are also shown on these tallies. No one was injured during the attacks.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society operations | Spain and Portugal-area whaling (1979–1980)
The age of a whale can be reliably gathered by examining the ear plug in the head of the dead animal, which accumulates as annual growth rings. Japan initially argued that simple population distribution of whale species is enough to determine the level of sustainability of the hunt and argued that certain species of whale, particularly minke whales, are in sufficient number to be hunted. The anti-whaling side countered by arguing that more accurate composition of population distribution in term of age and sex distribution is needed to determine the sustainability, which ironically provided the justification for the Japanese hunt under the scientific research exemption.
Whale conservation | Value for research
Modern observation of right whales in southern Japan and in Izu and Bonin Islands, and in Amami Ōshima, didn't show any signs of whales spending long periods there (although being relaxed, resorting activities have been confirmed) and mostly whales left in a few days, thus where these individuals spent most time in those winters are largely unclear. Only record of longer staying was of Shiretoko sighting in 2013 as possibly the same individual stayed along western coasts of the peninsula for two weeks, and this case was in summer. It is unclear whether the two sightings from the same area on June 25 and July 19, 2019 belong to the same individual (see above).
North Pacific right whale | Western North Pacific
The Inuit have a word for this behavior to give historical context that this is not a new phenomenon. Global warming is increasing the frequency that killer whales are observed in the far north. A once-rare event, killer whales are now seen more frequently. There are no reports of attacks on bowheads by sharks.
Bowhead whale | Predation
The chemist Christopher Ash, who had served on the British factory ship "Balaena" during this time, stated that they were small enough to be lifted by their tails using a 10-ton spring balance and weighed entire. "Generally this is done when there are no other whales about and the deck empty except for a crowd of sightseers," Ash explained, "but this crowd quickly scatters when the whale is just hanging free and starts to spin around and swing from side to side, as it almost always does." Like Bull before him, Ash commented on their meat, which he described as "fine-textured in comparison with the other whales, and if properly cooked almost indistinguishable from beef." They were primarily exploited for this very reason – their high quality meat – in later years, which fetched as much as two dollars a pound in 1977.
Antarctic minke whale | Whaling