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
Gray whale Gray whale Yes, the gray whale. Gray whale
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
assistant
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
assistant
what does the economy of this place depend upon?
user
Fishery
assistant
is there any waterbody nearby ?
user
North Sea
assistant
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
assistant
does this place experiences any natural hazards?
user
Storm surges and tsunamis
assistant
are whales captured here?
user
Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century by by 1902 the whaling had ended
assistant
any particular whale species that was hunted?
user
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
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
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
From the early 17th century through the 18th century, Basque whalers hunted as far north as Svalbard and Bear Island, to include participation in Dutch and English whaling expeditions there. Competition between nations led to over-exploitation of whale stocks (and armed naval conflict in 1613, 1618, 1626, 1634, and 1638). By the middle of the 17th century other European nations also hunted whale in these lucrative waters. The whales were primarily hunted to render oil from the blubber for production of soap, paint, varnish, and more—including oil for illumination. The baleen, or whalebone, was also used in products like corsets and umbrellas.
Whaling in Norway | Svalbard
Ships hunted and fished to supplement their diet and income. They shot ducks and geese, swans, eagles, and seabirds, and caught pinnipeds (seals, fur seals, and sea lions), fox, and moose. Bears were killed for sport and made into sea pies and trophies; they were also shot for trying to steal whale meat and blubber. They fished for salmon, trout, codfish and "grouper" (probably sea bass), and smelts. They also went ashore to collect bird's eggs, berries, mussels, and clams.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Hunting and fishing
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
Extensive hunting of killer whales, including an Antarctic catch of 916 in 1979–80 alone, prompted the International Whaling Commission to recommend a ban on commercial hunting of the species pending further research. Today, no country carries out a substantial hunt, although Indonesia and Greenland permit small subsistence hunts (see Aboriginal whaling). Other than commercial hunts, killer whales were hunted along Japanese coasts out of public concern for potential conflicts with fisheries. Such cases include a semi-resident male-female pair in Akashi Strait and Harimanada being killed in the Seto Inland Sea in 1957, the killing of five whales from a pod of 11 members that swam into Tokyo Bay in 1970, and a catch record in southern Taiwan in the 1990s.
Killer whale | Whaling
The earlier of known records of commercial hunting of killer whales date to the 18th century in Japan. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the global whaling industry caught immense numbers of baleen and sperm whales, but largely ignored killer whales because of their limited amounts of recoverable oil, their smaller populations, and the difficulty of taking them. Once the stocks of larger species were depleted, killer whales were targeted by commercial whalers in the mid-20th century. Between 1954 and 1997, Japan took 1,178 killer whales (although the Ministry of the Environment claims that there had been domestic catches of about 1,600 whales between late 1940s to 1960s) and Norway took 987.
Killer whale | Whaling
The cured skin is the only cetacean skin that is sufficiently thick to be used as leather. In fact, their skin is so thick, that it was even used to manufacture some of the first bulletproof vests. Russia had large hunts, peaking in the 1930s at 4,000 per year and the 1960s at 7,000 per year, for a total of 86,000 from 1915 to 2014. Canada hunted a total of 54,000 from 1731 to 1970. Between 1868 and 1911, Scottish and American whalers killed more than 20,000 belugas in Lancaster Sound and Davis Strait. During the 1920s, fishermen in the Saint Lawrence River estuary considered belugas to be a threat to the fishing industry, as they eat large quantities of cod, salmon, tuna and other fish caught by the local fishermen.
Beluga whale | Past
Whaling was mentioned in Norwegian written sources as early as the year 800, and hunting minke whales with harpoons was common in the 11th century. In the 19th century, they were considered too small to chase, and received their name from a young Norwegian whale-spotter in the crew of Svend Foyn, who harpooned one, mistaking it for a blue whale and was derided for it. By the end of the 1930s, they were the target of coastal whaling by Brazil, Canada, China, Greenland, Japan, Korea, Norway, and South Africa. Minke whales were not then regularly hunted by the large-scale whaling operations in the Southern Ocean because of their relatively small size.
Minke whale | Whaling
Humpback whales were hunted as early as the 18th century. By the 19th century, many nations (particularly the United States) were hunting the animal heavily in the Atlantic Ocean and to a lesser extent in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The late-19th-century introduction of the explosive harpoon allowed whalers to accelerate their take. This, along with hunting in the Antarctic Ocean beginning in 1904, sharply reduced whale populations. During the 20th century, over 200,000 humpbacks were taken, reducing the global population by over 90%. North Atlantic populations dropped to as low as 700 individuals.
Humpback whale | Whaling
In the North Atlantic between 1885 and 1984, 14,295 sei whales were taken. They were hunted in large numbers off the coasts of Norway and Scotland beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in 1885 alone, more than 700 were caught off Finnmark. Their meat was a popular Norwegian food. The meat's value made the hunting of this difficult-to-catch species profitable in the early twentieth century. In Iceland, a total of 2,574 whales were taken from the Hvalfjörður whaling station between 1948 and 1985. Since the late 1960s to early 1970s, the sei whale has been second only to the fin whale as the preferred target of Icelandic whalers, with meat in greater demand than whale oil, the prior target.
Sei whale | North Atlantic
The North Atlantic population may have been hunted to extinction in the 18th century. Circumstantial evidence indicates whaling could have contributed to this population's decline, as the increase in whaling activity in the 17th and 18th centuries coincided with the population's disappearance. A. B. Van Deinse points out the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725, as one target of early New England whalers, was almost certainly the gray whale. In his 1835 history of Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony, a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers.
Gray whale | North Atlantic
Of the 86 whales caught from Getaria and Lekeitio, up to 22% were calves. Such hunting methods would have had "detrimental consequences" for the species. The second factor may have been even more devastating to right whales, given the stock identify of this species is unknown. There may have been a large population extending throughout the North Atlantic, meaning a single population would have been taken in several areas at the same time, as this species was the main target of operations in New England, New York, Iceland, Northern Norway, and elsewhere from the early 17th century onwards. It was once thought that this species was also the main target (or at least represented half the catch) in southern Labrador, but it now appears as though bowhead whales ("Balaena mysticetus") were the primary targets.
History of Basque whaling | Composition of catch and possible reasons for decline
Whaling is a method of hunting whales for their meat, oil and blubber. The hunting of whales on an industrial scale began in the 17th century and into the 20th century, and as a result of the quantities caught the whale is an endangered species. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986 to increase the remaining whale population in the seas. Whales are killed at sea often using explosive harpoons, which puncture the skin of a whale and then explode inside its body. Anti-whaling groups say this method of hunting is cruel, particularly if carried out by inexperienced gunners, because a whale can take several minutes or even hours to die.
Whale conservation | Whaling history and process
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
The development of explosive harpoons and steam-powered whaling ships in the late nineteenth century brought previously unobtainable large whales within reach of commercial whalers. Initially their speed and elusiveness, and later the comparatively small yield of oil and meat partially protected them. Once stocks of more profitable right whales, blue whales, fin whales, and humpback whales became depleted, sei whales were hunted in earnest, particularly from 1950 to 1980.
Sei whale | Whaling
In Japan, hunting for right whales dates back at least to the 16th century, although stranded whales had been used for centuries before then. In 1675, Yoriharu Wada invented a new method of whaling, entangling the animals in nets before harpooning them. Initially the nets were made of straw, later replaced by the stronger hemp. A hunting group consisted of 15–20 "Seko-bune" or "beater" boats, 6 "Ami-bune" or netting boats and 4 "Mosso-bune" or tug boats, for a total of 30–35 boats with crews totaling about 400. In addition to right whales, they took gray whales and humpback whales. Hunts took place in two regions: the south coast (modern Mie, Wakayama and Kōchi Prefectures) on the east coasts, and the waters north of the prefectures from Kyoto to Yamaguchi and to the west of Kyūshū which hunted in the Sea of Japan.
North Pacific right whale | Whaling before 1835
By 1853, US profits reached US$11,000,000 (UK£6.5m), equivalent to US$348,000,000 (UK£230m) today, the most profitable year for the American whaling industry. Commonly exploited species included North Atlantic right whales, sperm whales, which were mainly hunted by Americans, bowhead whales, which were mainly hunted by the Dutch, common minke whales, blue whales, and grey whales. The scale of whale harvesting decreased substantially after 1982 when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) placed a moratorium which set a catch limit for each country, excluding aboriginal groups until 2004. Current whaling nations are Norway, Iceland, and Japan, despite their joining to the IWC, as well as the aboriginal communities of Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada.
Whale | Whaling
Whaling by humans has existed since the Stone Age. Ancient whalers used harpoons to spear the bigger animals from boats out at sea. People from Norway and Japan started hunting whales around 2000 B.C. Whales are typically hunted for their meat and blubber by aboriginal groups; they used baleen for baskets or roofing, and made tools and masks out of bones. The Inuit hunted whales in the Arctic Ocean. The Basques started whaling as early as the 11th century, sailing as far as Newfoundland in the 16th century in search of right whales. 18th- and 19th-century whalers hunted whales mainly for their oil, which was used as lamp fuel and a lubricant, baleen or whalebone, which was used for items such as corsets and skirt hoops, and ambergris, which was used as a fixative for perfumes.
Whale | Whaling
However, by the early 1970s, following the overhunting of larger whales such as the sei, fin, and blue whales, minkes became a more attractive target of whalers. By 1979, the minke was the only whale caught by Southern Ocean fleets. Hunting continued apace until the general moratorium on whaling began in 1986. Following the moratorium, most hunting of minke whales ceased. Japan continued catching whales under the special research permit clause in the IWC convention, though in significantly smaller numbers. The stated purpose of the research is to establish data to support a case for the resumption of sustainable commercial whaling.
Minke whale | Whaling
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
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
Minke whale is one of the most common species still hunted in substantial numbers. Baleen whales other than the minke are endangered, though they are taken in numbers by indigenous peoples who traditionally hunt them, and more lately, the whaling nations have resumed hunting larger baleen whales openly. In 1998-1999, Harvard researchers published their DNA identifications of samples of whale meat they obtained in the Japanese market, and found that mingled among the presumably legal (i.e. minke whale meat) was a sizeable proportion of dolphin and porpoise meats, and instances of endangered species such as fin whale and humpback whale.
Whale meat | Species hunted
Commercial whaling in Britain began late in the 16th century and continued after the 1801 formation of the United Kingdom and intermittently until the middle of the 20th century. The trade was broadly divided into two branches. The northern fishery involved hunting the bowhead whale off the coast of Greenland and adjacent islands. The southern fishery was activity anywhere else, including in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and off the Antarctic. The Sperm whale, the Southern right whale and Humpback whale were the main target species in South Sea whaling. The industry went on to become a profitable national enterprise and a source of skilled mariners for the Royal Navy in times of war.
Whaling in the United Kingdom | Introduction
In 1684, 246 Dutch whalers captured 1,185 whales in the waters off Spitsbergen. Typically, whaling expeditions hunted the Bowhead whale, which is a slow-moving unhurried creature which yields plenty of oil. Their high percentage of body fat also meant that they floated when dead and, therefore, were easy to tow back to the land.
Whaling in the Netherlands | 17th century
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
Marine mammals were hunted by coastal aboriginal humans historically for food and other resources. These subsistence hunts still occur in Canada, Greenland, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and several nations in the Caribbean. The effects of these are only localized, as hunting efforts were on a relatively small scale. Commercial hunting took this to a much greater scale and marine mammals were heavily exploited. This led to the extinction of the †Steller's sea cow ("Hydrodamalis gigas"), †sea mink ("Neovison macrodon"), †Japanese sea lion ("Zalophus japonicus"), and the †Caribbean monk seal ("Neomonachus tropicalis"). Today, populations of species that were historically hunted, such as blue whales ("Balaenoptera musculus") and the North Pacific right whale ("Eubalaena japonica"), are much lower than their pre-whaling levels.
Marine mammal | Exploitation
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
Following the events of 1638 hostilities, for the most part, ceased, with the exception of a few minor incidents in the 1640s between the French and Danes, as well as between Copenhagen and Hamburg and London and Yarmouth, respectively. The species hunted was the bowhead whale, a baleen whale that yielded large quantities of oil and baleen. The whales entered the fjords in the spring following the breakup of the ice. They were spotted by the whalemen from suitable vantage points, and pursued by "shallops", "chaloupes" or "chalupas", which were manned by six men. (These terms derive from the Basque word "txalupa", used to name the whaling boats that were widely utilized during the golden era of Basque whaling in Labrador in the 16th century.) The whale was harpooned and lanced to death and either towed to the stern of the ship or to the shore at low tide, where men with long knives would flense (cut up) the blubber.
History of whaling | Greenland and Spitsbergen
Two species of whale were hunted in southern Labrador, the North Atlantic right whale and the bowhead whale. The former were taken during the "early" season in the summer, while the latter was caught from the fall to early winter (October–January). DNA analysis of the old bones after a comprehensive search of Basque whaling ports from the 16th to the 17th century, in the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence found that the right whale was by then less than 1% of the whales taken. During the peak of Terranova whaling (1560s–1580s) the Spanish Basques used well-armed galleons of up to 600–700 tons, while the French Basques usually fitted out smaller vessels.
History of Basque whaling | Hunting methods, culture, and archaeology
During the commercial whaling era, from 1950-51 to 1986-87, 97,866 minke whales (the vast majority probably Antarctic minkes) were caught in the Southern Ocean – mainly by the Japanese and Soviets – with a peak of 7,900 being reached in 1976-77. Harpoon guns of lesser caliber and "cold harpoons" (harpoons without explosive shells) had to be used due to their small size, while no air was pumped into the carcasses when they were tied alongside for towing to ensure the greatest quality of meat. While an expedition or two was fitted out each year specifically for minke whales – the "Jinyo Maru" in 1971-72, the "Chiyo Maru" from 1972-73 to 1974-75, and the "Kyokusei Maru" in 1973-74 – most expeditions, which targeted other species, ignored minkes during the peak of the whaling season (November–December and late February to early March) and only caught them on whaling grounds relatively close to those of larger ones – the minke whaling grounds were much further south (south of 60°S) than those for fin and sei whales.
Antarctic minke whale | Whaling
Considering the extent of whaling on the Baird's species, the pod's uninfluenced structure is not well known. To date, two-thirds of the whales caught have been male, despite the fact that females are somewhat larger than males and would be thought to be the preferred targets for whalers. Despite their still being hunted by whalers and researchers near Japan, there isn't sufficient enough data to predict its IUCN status and whether or not it is endangered or vulnerable. They are not listed as "threatened" or "endangered" under the endangered species act nor depleted under the MMPA. They are not being hunted for research due to Japan pulling out of the whaling commission in 2018/2019.
Berardius | Behavior
The Inuit have hunted whales long before European whaling ships showed up in the 1700s. from the 1940s they were forced to stop, but resumed in the 1990s. Only a few licenses are available each year. The hunt is monitored and co-managed by Nunavik Marine Regional Wildlife Board, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Subsistence hunting of the bowhead whale | In Arctic Canada
They hunted at or beyond the northern limits of the right whale's range.
North Pacific right whale | Whaling before 1835
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
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
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
By 1962, humpback, blue and fin whales were getting harder to find in the North Pacific, and the Soviet whalers, under great pressure from their own government to meet production targets, deliberately chose to hunt right whales, apparently killing every right whale they could over the next eight years, in the North Pacific and also the southern oceans. The Soviet government then filed fraudulent reports with the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics and the International Whaling Commission, admitting killing during this period only one right whale, by accident.
North Pacific right whale | Illegal Soviet whaling: 1962–1968
It was later called the Biscayan right whale ("Balaena biscayensis"), and is now known as the North Atlantic right whale ("Eubalaena glacialis"). It was caught during its migration from the months of October–November to February–March, with peak catching probably occurring in January. They may have also hunted the gray whale ("Eschrichtius robustus"), which existed in the North Atlantic until at least the early 18th century. Bryant suggests that if gray whales inhabited coastal waters like they do today in the North Pacific they would have been likely targets for Basque whalers, perhaps even more so then the North Atlantic right whale – although most contemporary illustrations and skeletal remains from catches were of the latter species.
History of Basque whaling | Establishment and expansion
Blue whales were nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries by commercial whalers until the International Whaling Commission banned the taking of blue whales in 1967. The International Whaling Commission catch database estimates that 382,595 blue whales were caught between 1868 and 1978, including 7,973 in the North Pacific (2.09%), 10,442 in the North Atlantic (2.73%), 5,383 in the South Pacific (1.41%), and in the Southern Ocean, 13,022 pygmy blue whales (3.40%) and 345,775 Antarctic blue whales (90.40%). The Soviet Union continued to illegally hunt blue whales in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere through to 1973, and Spanish vessels caught occasional blue whales up until 1978.
Blue whale | Globally
Once alerted, men launched small rowing boats from the beach, or, if the shoreline was steep, the boats were held by a capstan and launched by releasing the rope attached to the boats. The whale was struck with a two-flued harpoon (as shown in the seal of Hondarribia, dated 1297), lanced, and killed. A larger boat manned by ten men towed the carcass ashore, waiting for high tide to beach the whale, where it was flensed. The blubber was then brought to a boiling house where it was rendered into oil.
History of Basque whaling | Hunting methods
One fishery at Cape Cod harvested 2,000–3,000 whales per year during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Newfoundland's long-finned pilot whale fishery was at its highest in 1956, but declined shortly after and is now defunct. In the Southern Hemisphere, exploitation of long-finned pilot whales has been sporadic and low. Currently, long-finned pilot whales are only hunted at the Faroe Islands and Greenland. According to the IUCN the harvesting of this species for food in the Faroe Islands and Greenland has not resulted in any detectable declines in abundance. The short-finned pilot whale has also been hunted for many centuries, particularly by Japanese whalers.
Pilot whale | Hunting
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
American and French whaleships, as well as a few German, Hawaiian, Russian, Chilean, and British, hunted whales in the Sea of Okhotsk between the late 1830s and 1909. Right whales were targeted from the mid- to late 1840s and from the 1880s onwards, while bowheads were first caught in 1847, and dominated the catch between 1852 and the late 1860s. Between 1850 and 1853 the majority of the fleet went to the Bering Strait region to hunt bowheads, but intense competition, poor ice conditions, and declining catches forced the fleet back to the Sea of Okhotsk. From 1854 to 1856, an average of over 160 vessels cruised in the sea each year.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Chronology
In the 20th century, Baird's beaked whales were hunted primarily by Japan and to a lesser extent by the USSR, Canada and the United States. The USSR reported killing 176 before hunting ended in 1974. Canadian and American whalers killed 60 before halting in 1966. Japan killed around 4000 individuals before the 1986 moratorium on whaling (about 300 were killed in the most prolific year, 1952). Baird's beaked whales are not protected under the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on commercial whaling, as Japan argues they are a 'small cetacean' species, despite being larger than minke whales, which are protected. Each year, 62 Baird's beaked whales are hunted commercially in Japan, with the meat sold for human consumption.
Berardius | Conservation
In the 19th century, the fin whale was occasionally hunted by open-boat whalers, but it was relatively safe, because it could easily outrun ships of the time and often sank when killed, making the pursuit a waste of time for whalers. However, the later introduction of steam-powered boats and harpoons that exploded on impact made it possible to kill and secure them along with blue and sei whales on an industrial scale. As other whale species became overhunted, the whaling industry turned to the still-abundant fin whale as a substitute. It was primarily hunted for its blubber, oil, and baleen.
Fin whale | Whaling
Whaling by humans has existed since the Stone Age. Ancient whalers used harpoons to spear the bigger animals from boats out at sea. People from Norway started hunting whales around 4,000 years ago, and people from Japan began hunting whales in the Pacific at least as early as that. Whales are typically hunted for their meat and blubber by aboriginal groups; they used baleen for baskets or roofing, and made tools and masks out of bones. The Inuit hunted whales in the Arctic Ocean. The Basques started whaling as early as the 11th century, sailing as far as Newfoundland in the 16th century in search of right whales.
Baleen whale | History of whaling
Britain's involvement in whaling extended from 1611 to the 1960s and had three phases. The Northern (or Arctic) whale fishery lasted from 1611 to 1914 and involved whaling primarily off Greenland, and particularly the Davis Strait. The Southern (or South Seas) whale fishery was active from 1775 to 1859 and involved whale hunting first in the South Atlantic, then in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. British law defined and differentiated the two trades. Finally, modern British involvement in whaling extended from 1904 to 1963. Each of these three trades involved different species of whales as targets.
History of whaling | Britain
Some communities both hunted and scavenged. William Barr, the Arctic historian, gives two examples of the late eighteenth century: the Moravian missions on Labrador, and possibly the Inuit of Hudson Strait, who had a trading relationship with the supply ships of the Hudson's Bay Company. However, Barr assumes that the drift whales were ones that the Inuit hunters (or possibly the European whaling ships) had harpooned and wounded, and the carcasses had come ashore some time later.
Drift whale | Both scavenging and hunting
Commercial whaling by European, American and Russian whalers during the 18th and 19th centuries decreased beluga populations in the Arctic. The animals were hunted for their meat and blubber, while the Europeans used the oil from the melon as a lubricant for clocks, machinery and lighting in lighthouses. Mineral oil replaced whale oil in the 1860s, but the hunting of these animals continued unabated. In 1863, the cured skin could be used to make horse harnesses, machine belts for saw mills and shoelaces. These manufactured items ensured the hunting of belugas continued for the rest of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Beluga whale | Past
Humans and killer whales (orcas) are the adult gray whale's only predators, although orcas are the more prominent predator. Aboriginal hunters, including those on Vancouver Island and the Makah in Washington, have hunted gray whales. Commercial whaling by Europeans of the species in the North Pacific began in the winter of 1845–46, when two United States ships, the "Hibernia" and the "United States", under Captains Smith and Stevens, caught 32 in Magdalena Bay. More ships followed in the two following winters, after which gray whaling in the bay was nearly abandoned because "of the inferior quality and low price of the dark-colored gray whale oil, the low quality and quantity of whalebone from the gray, and the dangers of lagoon whaling." Gray whaling in Magdalena Bay was revived in the winter of 1855–56 by several vessels, mainly from San Francisco, including the ship "Leonore", under Captain Charles Melville Scammon.
Gray whale | Eastern population
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
American and European whaleships hunted whales in the sea in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They primarily caught right and bowhead whales. A number of ships were wrecked in the sea.
Sea of Okhotsk | Whaling
If boats from different vessels were after the same whale one crew would yell to scare it away so that the rival boat couldn't harpoon it. Boats also removed the harpoons of other ships that they found in whales adrift and replaced them with their own craft, claiming they had caught the whales themselves. Ships picked up whales other ships had killed, finding their harpoons in their blubber. Over nineteen percent of the bowhead catch between 1854 and 1856 was made up of dead whales found floating in the ice, in the bays, or drifted ashore. Of twenty-one whales a ship had taken one season, eight were found dead.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Competition
Incomplete counts of beluga hunts, for the Beaufort Sea, begin in 1960, with 14 to 212 belugas killed per year. Parts of Nunavut and Nunavik are covered starting in 1996, with 400-700 killed per year. Bowhead whales are also taken: in northwestern Canada one each in 1991 and 1996, and in northeastern Canada one each in 1994, 1996 and 1998. "Pour la suite du monde", a classic of Canadian cinema, is a 1963 documentary in which the film producers persuaded the inhabitants of a St Lawrence island to try once again to catch a beluga, something they had not done for decades.
Whaling in Canada | 20th century
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
At its height in the 1880s, U.S. profits turned to USD10,000,000, equivalent to US$225,000,000 today. Commonly exploited species included arctic whales such as the gray whale, right whale, and bowhead whale because they were close to the main whaling ports, like New Bedford. After those stocks were depleted, rorquals in the South Pacific were targeted by nearly all whaling organizations; however, they often out-swam whaling vessels. Whaling rorquals was not effective until the harpoon cannon was invented in the late 1860s. Whaling basically stopped when stocks of all species were depleted to a point that they could not be harvested on a commercial scale.
Baleen whale | History of whaling
By 1900, bowhead, gray, northern humpback and right whales were nearly extinct, and whaling had declined. It revived with the invention of harpoons shot from cannons, explosive tips and factory ships, which allowed distant whaling. Whaling expanded in the northern hemisphere, then in the southern hemisphere. As each species was reduced to the point where it was hard to find, whalers moved on to the next species, catching blue whales, fin whales, sperm whales, sei whales and minke whales in sequence. The League of Nations held a conference on whaling in 1927, and in 1931 27 countries signed a convention for the regulation of whaling.
History of whaling | Twentieth century
In the decade between 1850 and 1859, the catch dropped to 3,000–4,000 animals, one-sixth the previous level. Between 1860 and 1870, it dropped to 1,000 animals. By the end of the 19th century, pelagic whalers averaged less than 10 right whales per year. In the late 19th century, steam propulsion and the explosive harpoon opened up new whaling opportunities. Species previously too swift to hunt commercially could now be caught—blue and fin whales. Small coastal whaling operations opened in California, Oregon, and Washington, British Columbia, and in the Aleutian Islands and in southeast Alaska, and in the Kuril Islands in the west.
North Pacific right whale | Industrial: 1850–1930s
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
By 1750, the North Atlantic right whale population was, for commercial purposes, depleted. Yankee whalers moved into the South Atlantic before the end of the 18th century. The population was so low by the mid-19th century that the famous Whitby whaler Rev. William Scoresby, son of the successful British whaler William Scoresby senior (1760–1829), claimed to have never seen a right whale (although he mainly hunted bowhead whales off eastern Greenland, outside the normal range of right whales).
North Atlantic right whale | Whaling
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
Other times, they corral their prey before striking. They are typically hunted by groups of 10 or fewer killer whales, but they are seldom attacked by an individual. Calves are more commonly taken by killer whales, but adults can be targeted, as well. Groups even attack larger cetaceans such as minke whales, gray whales, and rarely sperm whales or blue whales. Other marine mammal prey species include nearly 20 species of seal, sea lion and fur seal. These cetaceans are targeted by terrestrial and pagophilic predators. The polar bear is well-adapted for hunting Arctic whales and calves. Bears are known to use sit-and-wait tactics, as well as active stalking and pursuit of prey on ice or water.
Toothed whale | Foraging and predation
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
The people of Lamalera hunt several species of whales, primarily sperm whales (the baleen whale is taboo), and in the peak year of 1969 caught 56 sperm whales. In addition to whales, dolphins, manta rays, turtles and several species of sharks are also hunted. In 1973, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization sent a whaling ship and a Norwegian master whaler, to modernize the hunt. This effort lasted three years, and was not successful. According to the FAO report, the Lamalerans "have evolved a method of whaling which suits their natural resources, cultural tenets and style." The World Wildlife Fund has carried out surveys in the village to determine that the limited hunting does not endanger world whale stocks or other endangered species.
Aboriginal whaling | Indonesian whaling
Since bowheads range further north than right whales, hunting pressure on right whales declined rapidly. The estimated total catch in the fishery in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, North Pacific and Sea of Okhotsk was 26,500–37,000 right whales between 1839 and 1909. Eighty percent of this catch was concentrated in the single decade of 1840–49.
North Pacific right whale | Pelagic: 1835–1850
Grays were caught from June to October. They were seldom seen, chased, or caught off the Shantar Islands or in the bays to the south of them. As many as nine grays could be caught in a season. They sometimes caught humpbacks, killers, and belugas and also made desultory attempts to catch blue whales and "finbacks" (probably fin whales). Once they found a whale, they typically sailed up to it, fastened to it with hand-held harpoons, and killed it with hand-held lances; whales were rarely killed by harpoons alone. Boatsteerers were "broken" (demoted) for missing whales. Bomb lances were used as early as 1851, but they weren't widely utilized until the late 1850s.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Catch
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
Whaling for sperm whales was by far the bulk of all operations in the North Pacific, indeed so much that whaling in this region could have never existed without the presence of the sperm whale. The large males, which were the most coveted in whaling operations, had already been rapidly depleted, but since size restrictions existed for females, it was assumed that males would have to make up most of the catch. Nevertheless, during the period 1972–1977, as much as 80% of the catch in most areas was females, whereas in the period 1970–71, 9,000 females were caught but only 1,800 reported, while in the same years 12,300 males were reported but only 5,700 killed.
Whaling in the Soviet Union and Russia | North Pacific whaling
18th and 19th century whalers hunted down whales mainly for their oil, which was used as lamp fuel and a lubricant, and baleen (or whalebone), which was used for items such as corsets and skirt hoops. The most successful whaling nations at this time were the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. Commercial whaling was historically important as an industry well throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Whaling was at that time a sizable European industry with ships from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, sometimes collaborating to hunt whales in the Arctic. By the early 1790s, whalers, namely the British (Australian) and Americans, started to focus efforts in the South Pacific; in the mid 1900s, over 50,000 humpback whale were taken from the South Pacific.
Baleen whale | History of whaling
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
Between 1948 and 1980, hundreds of whales were exploited at Hokkaido and Sanriku in the north and Taiji, Izu, and Okinawa in the south. These fisheries were at their highest in the late 1940s and early 1950s; 2,326 short-finned pilot whales were harvested in the mid- to late 1980s. This had decreased to about 400 per year by the 1990s.
Pilot whale | Hunting
As these populations declined and the market for whale products grew, American whalers began hunting sperm whales. The sperm whale was particularly prized for spermaceti, a dense waxy substance that burns with an exceedingly bright flame that is found in the spermaceti organ, located forward and above the skull. Hunting sperm whales required longer whaling voyages.
History of whaling | New England
Hunts receive subsidies, but they continue as a tradition, rather than for the money, and the economic analysis noted that whale watching may be an alternate revenue source. Of the gross income, was for Beluga skin and meat, to replace beef, pork and chickens which would otherwise be bought, was received for carved vertebrae and teeth. was for Narwhal skin and meat, was received for tusks, and carved vertebrae and teeth of males, and was received for carved vertebrae and teeth of female Narwhals. Cetaceans are not hunted elsewhere, although humans kill them via , fishing net entanglement, bio-accumulated pollution, and so on.
Whaling in Canada | 21st century
Other times they corral the narwhals or belugas before striking. They are typically hunted by groups of 10 or fewer orcas, but they are seldom attacked by an individual. Calves are more commonly taken by orcas, but adults can be targeted as well. These small whales are also targeted by terrestrial and pagophilic predators. The polar bear is well adapted for hunting Arctic whales and calves. Bears are known to use sit-and-wait tactics as well as active stalking and pursuit of prey on ice or water. Whales lessen the chance of predation by gathering in groups. This however means less room around the breathing hole as the ice slowly closes the gap.
Whale | Foraging and predation
Sperm whales were hunted in the 19th century by American, British and other national whaling fleets. As with all the species targeted, the thick layer of fat (blubber) was flensed (removed from the carcass) and rendered, either on the whaling ship itself, or at a shore station. This was the whale oil, stored in casks for the long journey home. It was sold as a lamp fuel, not a food product; the whale meat was discarded. The other species that were within reach during the Age of Sail were filter-feeders, and their baleen had many commercial uses. The sperm whale, being a toothed hunter, lacked this so-called whalebone, but it did produce a valuable commodity: sperm oil.
Sperm whaling | Economic motivation
In 1946, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was founded to oversee the industry. They imposed hunting regulations and created hunting seasons. To prevent extinction, IWC banned commercial humpback whaling in 1966. By then, the global population had been reduced to around 5,000. The ban has remained in force since 1966. Prior to commercial whaling, populations could have reached 125,000. North Pacific kills alone are estimated at 28,000. The Soviet Union deliberately under-recorded its catches; the Soviets reported catching 2,820 between 1947 and 1972, but the true number was over 48,000. As of 2004, hunting was restricted to a few animals each year off the Caribbean island of Bequia in the nation of St.
Humpback whale | Ban
The Southern right whale was hunted to near extinction in the mid-to-late 20th century, with only a small (unknown) population around Antarctica. Because of international protection, the Southern right whale's population has been growing 7% annually since 1970. Conversely, the eastern stock of North Atlantic right whale was extirpated from much of its former range, which stretched from the coast of North Africa to the North Sea and Iceland; it is thought that the entire stock consists of only ten individuals, making the eastern stock functionally extinct. Baleen whales continue to be harvested. Only three nations take whales: Iceland, Norway, and Japan.
Baleen whale | Conservation and management issues
In December 1934 Næss travelled to Cape Town in order to study the whale hunt, and reached the "Vestfold" in January 1935. He saw the whole process of hunting and processing the whales. He was trying his luck at shooting whales and was very much impressed by the gunners' skill. The largest whale caught was some 33 m with a weight of over 100 tonnes. Næss seemed to regret part of his involvement in the whaling business, as it ended almost exterminating the large whales. Næss was back in London in March 1935, and though the market was still down it had improved, due to large purchases of whale oil by the German government.
Erling Dekke Næss | A taste of whale hunting and shadows of war
The most successful whaling nations at this time were the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. Commercial whaling was historically important as an industry well throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Whaling was at that time a sizeable European industry with ships from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, sometimes collaborating to hunt whales in the Arctic, sometimes in competition leading even to war. By the early 1790s, whalers, namely the Americans and Australians, focused efforts in the South Pacific where they mainly hunted sperm whales and right whales, with catches of up to 39,000 right whales by Americans alone.
Whale | Whaling
Aboriginal whaling takes place in the Canadian Arctic. Canadians kill about 600 narwhals per year. They kill 100 belugas per year in the Beaufort Sea, 300 in northern Quebec (Nunavik), and an unknown number in Nunavut. The total annual kill in Beaufort and Quebec areas varies between 300 and 400 belugas per year. Numbers are not available for Nunavut since 2003, when the Arviat area, with about half Nunavut's hunters, killed 200-300 belugas, though the authors say hunters resist giving complete numbers. Bowhead whales are still hunted in northeastern Canada: two to four per year. Harvested meat is sold through shops and supermarkets in northern communities where whale meat is a component of the traditional diet.
Whaling in Canada | 21st century
Historically, marine mammals were hunted by coastal aboriginal humans for food and other resources. The effects of this were only localised as hunting efforts were on a relatively small scale. Later, commercial hunting was developed and marine mammals were heavily exploited. This led to the extinction of the Steller's Sea Cow and the Caribbean monk seal. Today, populations of species that were historically hunted, such as blue whales "Balaenoptera musculus" and "B. m. brevicauda"), and the North Pacific right whale ("Eubalaena japonica"), are much lower compared to their pre-exploited levels. 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.
Marine mammals as food | History
Pygmy sperm whales have never been hunted on a wide scale. Land-based whalers have hunted them from Indonesia, Japan, and the Lesser Antilles. This species was impacted by whaling in the 18th and 19th centuries, as sperm whales were especially sought after by whalers for their sperm oil, produced by the spermaceti organ. The oil was used to fuel kerosene lamps. Ambergris, a waste product produced by the whales, was also valuable to whalers as it was used by humans in cosmetics and perfume. They were not as heavily hunted as its larger counterpart "Physeter macrocephalus", the sperm whale, which are typically 120,000 lb, thus preferred by whalers.
Pygmy sperm whale | Human interaction
Gray whales, as large as 36 tonnes, was the normal target. Hunting Gray whales in small boats was a very dangerous occupation, as many hunters were killed or injured. John Brown Whaling Company also operated at Portuguese Bend, starting in 1869. The last hunt was in 1885 due to the lack of the over hunted whales. Captain Joseph Clark is believed to have started the whaling industry in 1864. Gray whales were given protection from commercial hunting in 1949 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and are no longer hunted on a large scale. Los Angeles had real estate boom in 1887.
Old Whaling Station | Introduction
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
From 1753 to 1837 whalers from Whitby were active in the Davis Strait. In 1832 the "Phoenix" was the only vessel to go out, returning with a record 234 tons of oil. The owners of the "Phoenix", the Chapmans, therefore sent out two ships in 1833, the and the "Phoenix". Both vessels returned with large volumes of oil, but the price of whale oil and whalebone had fallen. After unsuccessful voyages in 1937 both ships were withdrawn from whaling, ending whaling from Whitby.
History of whaling | Northern whale fishery
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
The bowhead whale has been hunted for blubber, meat, oil, bones, and baleen. Like the right whale, it swims slowly, and floats after death, making it ideal for whaling. Before commercial whaling, they were estimated to number 50,000. Commercial bowhead whaling began in the 16th century when the Basques killed them as they migrated south through the Strait of Belle Isle in the fall and early winter. In 1611, the first whaling expedition sailed to Spitsbergen. The whaling settlement Smeerenburg was founded on Spitzbergen in 1619. By midcentury, the population(s) there had practically been wiped out, forcing whalers to voyage into the "West Ice"—the pack ice off Greenland's east coast.
Bowhead whale | Whaling
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
Historically, this species was not significantly targeted by commercial whalers, but became more important in the 1970s as the industry depleted other targets. The Japanese hunt this species as part of their scientific whaling program. Artisanal whalers have taken them off the coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines. Modern whaling for Bryde's whales is thought to have begun from coastal stations in Japan in 1906, where it continued uninterrupted until 1987—they were also caught offshore in the western North Pacific by both Japanese (1971–79) and Soviet (1966–79) fleets, as well as from Taiwan (1976–80), the Bonin Islands (1946–52 and 1981–87), and the Philippines (1983–85).
Bryde's whale | Whaling
Last record of the species in the nation was of a single whale being killed in the south of Haiyang Island in December 1977. There have been none of confirmed records along Chinese coasts targeting right whales since after the last catch (or a sighting) in 1977. For the catches in the Yellow Sea, P Wang, the same researcher who reported the catch in December 1977 off Haiyang Island in the Yellow Sea mentioned that it was possibly the same record as one in 1944 by Japanese whalers. Many of these captured individuals were rather large individuals as reaching around 16 m (52.5 ft), and were later made to be specimens for exhibition at several locations.
North Pacific right whale | After the official protection
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
The statistics are reliable from 1709 up to today, the statistics from the years where the Gable family (Christoffer Gabel (1617-1673) and his son Frederik Gable) ruled from 1642 to 1708 (Gablatíðin) is not so reliable according to the Danish/Faroese scientist Dorete Bloch, as there are only a few documents about whale killings from this period. There are statistics from 1584 to 1708, but they are not complete.
Tvøst og spik | Statistics of the hunt
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
Coastal groups in northeast Asian waters, along with many other baleen species, were likely driven into serious perils or functional extinctions by industrial catches by Japan covering wide ranges of China and Korean EEZ within very short period in 20th century. Migrations of the species into Japanese EEZ and in East China Sea were likely to be exterminated relatively earlier, as the last catch records on Amami Ōshima was between the 1910s and 1930s. After the cease of exploiting Asian stocks, Japan kept mass commercial and illegal hunts until 1975. Several thousand individuals were hunted from various stations mainly along coasts of Hokkaido, Sanriku, and the Gotō Islands.
Fin whale | Whaling
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
Once killed, the whale was towed by several boats or the larger schooners and taken to Tugur or Mamga, pulled ashore at high water, and flensed at low water. This attracted the attention of a number of bears, which the men at the try-works had to shoot at continually – during one cull lasting eight to ten days, Lindholm, with two men and armed with a Winchester, killed fifty-five of them. The bears even broke into one of the tanks while the men were away, biting or tearing off bits of blubber.
Otto Wilhelm Lindholm | Whaling in Siberia, 1862-1887
Boats from different ships raced each other for dead whales. Stranded whales attracted bears, which came down from the mountains at night to feed on them. Some ships "mated", sending their boats out together, taking turns cutting in and trying out whales, and splitting the catch. Others used schooners as tenders, which wintered in Lebyazhya Bay and Mamga Bay. The first to winter was the schooner "Caroline" (106 tons), of New London, in 1856–1857. She was left with four caretakers, all of whom died of scurvy. After this, schooners were left untended for the winter, and in the spring boats were sent ahead with gear and provisions to work their way through the ice and catch bowheads with the schooner before the ship arrived.
Whaling in the Sea of Okhotsk | Competition
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