Goodbye, Soon, to the Whale ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 998, 14 June 1930, Page 18

Goodbye, Soon, to the Whale ?

UK the descendants of “Moby Dick” going the way ot the dodo and the !great auk? Unless some- | thing is done to prohibit ! the tremendous catches of whales now being made by the large floating factories, the most interesting animal in the world—interesting because it is a warm-blooded creature, like a cat or a dog, which has gone from land to live in the ocean—will soon be relegated to the category of the extinct creatures.

Lewis Radcliffe, an expert on the subject, has already prophesied the extermination of some species of whales. “At no stage of whale fishing have whales been harassed in so many parts of the globe,” he said. “That the whale supply will long stand up under losses of 18,000 or more killed annually seems extremely doubtful.” Last year the catch numbered about 27,000.

Whales constitute at the present time one of the world’s richest natural resources. Few animals have contributed more to mankind's pocketbook and, incidentally, to woman’s discomfort than whales. One of the earliest uses of whalebone was for the plumes in the helmets of the knights and Crusaders of the Middle Ages. Today its use Is more prosaic—it goes into good brushes.

There is no known substitute for whale oil which is as good and as cheap for the purposes it serves. The Hull whalers in the early 17th century furnished some of the oil for the supply of good soap that came into use at that time, and whale oil is still one of the principal ingredients of some of our best soaps. That is perhaps the most important usage it has. Some if it goes into the making of butter substitutes and cosmetics. Inferior grades of whale oil go’ into the making of saddle soap and other kinds of dressings and lubricating greases.

There is a market today for eve: y part of the whale, as there is for tire pig. Everything can be used but the blow. Meal made from the dried meat is used for cattle feeding in Europe; the bonemeal, which is rich in phosphates, is an excellent fertiliser, and the guano made from the

remainder of the carcase makes a fertiliser of cheaper grade. The Greenland of Arctic right whale, so called because it possessed the best quality of whalebone for man’s uses, has practically been wiped out. It is doubtful if two dozen of these animals could be found in all of the oceans of the earth. The bowhead whale of the North Pacific also is almost extinct. But oven these two species are hunted when the occasion presents itself because of the high value of their products.

The black or southern right whale, once abundant near Australia and New Zealand and around the Cape of Good Hope, has been almost exterminated because the females could be killed easily when they came inshore during the breeding season. The principal theatre of operations today- is in the neighbourhood of the Antarctic Continent and the islands lying on the fringe of the Antarctic Circle—the Falklauds, South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands, as well as in the Ross Sea and the Southern Sea. There is also some little whaling around Behring Strait, ar.l that broad expanse of the Arctic Ocean known as Beaufort Sea, around Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In 1915-16 at least 11,792 animals captured in the Antarctic, and I, whales were captured in those waters in 1921-22. the entire kill for ;,,„L atter year being estimated at 11, The catch in 1927 numbered about 2,.000 whales. All the oceans of tile world yield a few whales. Just 2, I "’° apo ~ne Norwegian neet ot three vessels, operating on a, experimental basis to see what the waters of the Pacific off Mexico and Lower California would yield, got 23S

whales. The production of oil ha» risen to 61,000 000 gallons, as against a production in 1854 of 15.000,000 gallons.

The big whaling vessels operating at the present time can easily take care of about fifteen blue whales a day. That means approximately 1,600 ton; of meat and 1,500 barrels of oil- la 1926 the Sir James Clark Ross reported catching blue whales measuring from ninety to ninety-nine feet long. The record for the largest whale eve* ta -ten is 107 feet, captured off South Georgia. Such whales are estimated to weigh about one ton to the foot. Blue whales today average about ■» barrels of oil a-piece. finbacks about 45. and humpbacks about 30 barre's The following are provisions which have been suggested as desirable i’ J carrying out a conservation prt' gramme:—

“The setting up of an international committee to regulate pelagic anc shore whaling. “The inauguration of a system of licensing and the obtaining of assurances that unlicensed whales will no. be permitted to market their cargoes, whalers so licensed to abide by decisions of the international committed on all matters pertaining to the whaling industry.” The League of Nations is interested in the problem of whale conservation and Lucius Eastman, an observer in Geneva, who has been assigned to thj* investigation of the problems involved’ is already working to get some measures adopt’d, bur it is imperative that delay incidental to prolonged Official action may be avoided, lest ‘B the meanwhile the whales be so ratally reduced in number as to threaten extinction,