WHALING SEASON

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 202, 19 April 1932, Page 6

WHALING SEASON

MARKET FLOODED MILLION BARRELS OF OIL STILL REMAIN UNSOLD. OPERATIONS SLACKEN - No whaling ships, en route for southern seas, have called at Wellington of late. The reason for this is that the market has been flooded with oil, and .what amounts to a close" season has followed a record year, when 37,000 whales were caught. Over a million barrels of oil were unsold, and this gives an indication of the tremendous yield of the whalers. The world whaling fleet, aceording to a southern contemporary, eonsists of thirty-three factory ships, many cf them over 10,000 tons, 190 whale catchers, and five oil transport ships, making in all 350,000 tons of shipping. Although the Norwegian whaling companies agreed among themselves that the exploitation in previous years had been overdone, three companies have sent ships down to the Antarctic. The Southern Whaling Company sent 1 down two 12,000-ton ships with sixj teen small whale catchers to operate in the Enderby Land region. Another company sent three factory ships with attendant whale chas'ers, and an Ar~ gentine firm dispatched two floating refineries to work to the south and east of Cape Horn. The British survey ship Discovery II is continuing her work investigating - the habits and breeding of whales, about which very little is yet known. In the course of her researches the , Discovery II is expected to make calls i at Cape Town, Fremantle and Wellington.

Departmental Report Views on whaling were expressed in the 1930-31 report of the Marine Depaftment. Regarding discussion on the unrestricted slaughter of whales, it was stated that all the discussion was based on purely theoretical grounds, because no one was in a postion to know what the existing stocks of whales amounted to, what the rate of reproduction was, and what rate of lcilling might be permitted annually without unduly depleting stocks. The League of Nations had attempted to regulate whaling. The League could not, of course, approaeh the commercial aspect of the matter; but did so from the point of view of preventing undue depletion of the whaling stocks. Some further progress had been made, and New Zealand had actually signed the Convention. As the question is an international one, progress could be made only by international agreement. The present financial position of the industry, the report stated, should do much to clear the way for making the Convention itself more effective as an instrument eventually to regulate catching power, which is the whole crux of the question so far as preservation of whaling stock is concerned. The following table shows the number of whales taken in the Ross Sea Dependency and whale oil secured from the 1923-24 season onwards : —

,:,Denotcs xmlicencecl factory ships, Ihe reoords of -which it has not been possible to authenticate.

No. of Barrels Season. Whale Factory. Whales, of Oil 1923-4 — Sir James Clark Ross 221 17,791 1924-5 — Sir James Clark Ross 427 32,165 1925-6 — Sir James Clark Ross 531 37,700 1926-7 — Sir James Clark Ross 254 22,S00 1926-7 — C. A. Harsen 532 47,500 1926-7* — N. T. Nielsen Alonso 450 36,000 1927-8 — Sir James Clark Ross 616 48,000 1927-8 — O. A. Harsen 839 76,000 1927-8*N. T. Nielsen Alonso 725 58,000 1928-9 — Sir James Clark Ross 545 49,000 1928-9 — C. A. Harsen 795 73,000 1928-9* — N. T. Nielsen Alonso 765 63,500 1929-30 — Sir James Clark Ross 450 30,820 1929-30 — C. A. Harsen 1082 77,000 1929-30— Southern Princess .. 874 61,370 1929-30*-N. T. Nielsen Alonso 745 56,000 1929-30* — Kosmos 1822 116,000 1930-1 — Sir James Clark Ross 1443 112,500 1930-31 — Kosmos — 160,000 1930-1* — N. T. Nielsen Alonso — 105,000 1,280,146