SOUTH to the ANTARCTIC

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 8, 2 September 1932, Page 1

SOUTH to the ANTARCTIC

‘A talk given from 2YA by Mr. Dilwyn J ohn, leader of a scientific expedition which is leaving Wellington shortly by the-Royal Research ship "Discovery II." to investigate the whaling industry in the Antarctic.

HE Royal research ship, "Discovery IL", in which we have visited New Zealand in the course of circumnavigating the Antarctic in the winter: months, is carrying out a part of what are known as ‘the Discovery investiéations. These investigations consist of research into the whaling and sealing industries and other economic resources of the dependencies of the’ Falkland Islands. Of these researches, those into the whaling industry are by far the most important, and it is of them that I will speak. The Falkland Islands lie to the east of the extreme southern tip of the South American Continent. They are almost permanently windswept and, as a consequence, are quite treeless. _ The population is only 3000, and there is one town. The only industry is that of sheep-farming.. _ Their dependencies consist of truly Antarctic islands, or islands ‘having permanent snow and ice caps, lying further to "the south. The names of the islands are South Georgia, the South Shetland Islands, the-South Orkney Islands and the South Sandwich Islands. The Falklands and _ their dependencies form a British Crown Colony. ‘The Discovery investigations are paid for by a fund © known. as the Research and Development Fund of the dependencies of the Falkland Islands, and this fund was built up by the taxation of the whaling industry which, early in this century, was based in certain of the dependencies and has since grown to great importance there. Whaling in the Antarctic is now of greater importance than’ that of all other parts of the world put together. Indeed, it may be said that whaling elsewhere than in the Antarctic is. negligible. And yet the industry is a new one, dating only from 1904. .

The history of whaling is an extremely interesting one. At three times in history the hunting of the whale has become an industri@of world importance. The first time was infthe 16th century-the time of the English and Ditch fishery along the edges of the Arctic ice. The whales on which this industry was based were right whales, which were valuable, not only for their blubber, but also for the long boleen plates, or whalebone, in their mouths. Hun- ° g dreds of ships were employed, E "i 1 The second time was in the 18th and 19th centuries, when North American colonists / built wp the sperm whale fishery. Their ships-and at.one time there were a thousand ships employed-hunted all the temperate and tropical, seas of the world for sperm whales. In both these industries the whales were chased by open rowing boats, lowered from the

ship, and were secured .by means of hand harpoons thrown by a. harpooner in the bows of the boat. Both right and sperm whales float . when they are dead. If they didn’t, it would not have been possible to retain and tow them to the parent ship, where they were cut up and boiled down. . ; Both of these industries, of which I have given so brief a description, passed through a boom period and then declined and died because the whale populations on which they depended became ‘go depleted in numbers that further fishing became unprofitable. And neither of these whale populations-the right whales in the Arctic, nor the sperm whales in the high seas of the world- ‘ have yet recovered their numbers. It is not yet known how long it takes for a whale population to recover to its natural numbers after it has been over-fished by man. ; And that brings me to the main purpose of our investigations. It is to find out as much as possible about the stock of whales which forms the basis of the presentday industry in the Antarctic, so that if international agreement can be reached, the industry may be controlled and the stock of whales ‘not unduly depleted.

TY present-day ine dustry in the. Antarctic marks the third time in which whaling has become an industry of world importance, and, if history is not to be repeated and over~ fishing of the whale is not to take place, that industry must be controlled. Such an industry, based, as it is, on the slaughter of large numbers of animals of which little is known, can only be intelligently controlled when as much as possible is known of the life, history, breeding habits, food, and migrations of the whales hunted. It is the purpose of our investigations to attain that knowledge. ' And now I must describe very briefly the present-day industry. It is very different to the whaling of older times. At the end of the 19th century there were not sufficient numbers of either right or sperm whales left in the seas to supply the world with whale-oil. But it was discovered by Norwegians that there were enormous numbers. of blue and fin whales in Antarctic waters. These animals are bigger and faster than either right or sperm whales, and they sink when killed. The Norwegians invented the method (Continued. overleaf),

South to the Antarctic | -- . . ‘ (Continued from page 1.) by which they were captured. They are hunted in small steamers about. 120ft. long, with a gun mounted in the bow from which a harpoon weighing one hundredweight is fired into the whale. ‘The harpoon has an explosive point, fired by & time fuse. The captured whale: is brought alongsitle: the eatcher, air is pumped into it to make it buoyant, and it is towed either to. the whaling station or to the floating factory, to be cut up and boiled down. — At first modern whaling was carried on only from shore or fn anchored ‘parent factory ship, and in the Antarctie suitable bases occurred only in South Georgia and the South Shetland: Islands-dependéncies of the Falkland Islands. Each station, or anchored floatitig factory, had four or five whale catehers hunting for it. The industry carried on in this way from. British bases was subjéct to limitation and control by the British, and by a system of licenses and taxation the fund which finances our investigations was built up. More recently the industry has taken a new turn and has expanded along a new line. The floating factory. ships are no longer anchored in harbours near whaling grounds for the season, but they, with their catchers, follow the whales at sea; along the edge of the Antaretic sea ice. New and. bigger floating factories bave been built, some as much as 20,000 tons, and the more modern are able to haul the entire whale carease on deck and to deal with it as on a shore station.

This new method of whaling is known as pelagic whaling-the word pelagic» means floating-and the way in which > the industry has grown since its beginnings in 1927 is made clear by the. following facts :- In the season 1926-27, 12,000 whales were killed in the Antarctic; in the season 1929-30 the number was 80,000. Oil is extracted from every part of the whale-the fiesh and the bones, as well as the blubber, gre boiled down. The oil is used for making soaps and edible fats. ‘The whaling industry of . to-day is entirely manned by NorWwegians. Our last V-shaped ervise was frou Melbourne to the edge of the seéa-ice fringing the Antarctic continent, south of a point: midway between Australia and New Zealand, and north from that. point to New Zealand. Our next cruise will be south-east from Wellington to the ice-edge, nortn-east from it to the limits of Antarctic wuters and south-east again to the ice, After our second visit to the ice we will steam north-east to South America and the Falkland Islands, and that wil mark the completion of our ¢eireumnavigation of tlie Antarctic in a series of V-shaped crtiises in. the winter months. It is the first time that any ship ‘has made such cruises in Antarctic waters in the depth of winter. Our researches are on each cruise carried as far south as possible---to the edge .of the ice fringing the Antareti¢ con-. tinent. After our urrival in the Falkland Island we will repedt in the Ant arcti¢e seas of their dependencies the observations already made there in each of the last seven seasons, We hope to return to England next May, and it is probable that the ship will sail again in October, 1933, to continue the investigations. ‘

The Discovery II carries a staff of four zoologists and oné. hydrologist. ‘She-is also equipped with a trawler and has explored the possibilities of developing a commercial fishery.on the ‘eoastal banks of the Falkland Islands. , A second and smaller vessel called the Royal Research. Ship’ William Scoresby is also. engaged on the Discovery investigations, doing similar work to that of the Discovery Il. { have described very briefly the method of the researches of the ships of the investigations into the. environ‘ment of the whale. At the same time, more. direct research work on the whales themselves has been. done by yoologists of the staff at.one of the whaling stations at South Georgia, and

at-others in the South Shetlands and on the east and west coasts of Soutb ‘Africa. . More than 4000 whales have been examined and the information collected has yielded results of the greatest interest. It has. been shown thut both the blue and fin whales begin to breed at the age of two years, that they breed once every two years, and that they. stop growing when between the age of six and cight years of age. It. cannot yet be sald to what age they live, but it appears certain that it is not to the enormous age that it was at one time supposed. It may be less than fifty years. The vast amount of data collected from many reagons will, it is expected, make it possible for some estimate of the "population of whales in the Antarctic to be made. The examination of all the details will reveal the effect on the whole population of the recent over-fishing-there has certainly , been overfishing, These matters are being examined by members: of the Discov--ery investigations staff now at home ,in London, and [I catinot say more . concerning them. sO «> The executive staff of the Discovery I-Commander Carey and his officers -take evéry opportunity of surveying and charting little known and badly charted islarids of the dependencies of the PFalkland Islands. Several re cent Admiralty charts are based upon their surveys. The scientific collections of the Discovery investigations are already very much larger than those of any. previous expedition. and

the results of the work were recently~ published in a series of scientific reports, as The Discovery investigations are controlled’ by a committee, known as the Discovery Committee, appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The praétical work is carried out under the direction of Dr. Stanley Kemp, Fellow of the Royal. Society. _-. (he work: of the Discovery, II may be described: 4s research into the environments of. the whales which visit the Antarctic in the southern summer. In no two years are the populations in one place quite the same--one year Blue whales predomitiate, in another Fins-and their numbers vary. We collect. information on these points by direct observations and from commercial whaling récords, and our work at sea is designed to build up pictures of varying conditions in the sea from year ‘to year. When in the Antarctic both Biue and Fin whales feéd entirely on a small shrimp-like animal about an inch in. length. It is known by’ the. Norwégians as krill. It occurs. in very dense shoals in the surface, waters where conditions are favourable, and the whale swims through theye shoals with open motith and sifts e1ormous numbers with its boleen plates: The kril] in turn feeds upon the microscopic plants of the sea-the diatoms-and the diatoms, being plants, live directly oii the salts of the sea water. We must, then, if our researches are to be complete, investigate the salt content of the sea water from place to place, from time to time, and at all depths, since plant growth. depends on it.: We must. in the same way investi. gate the varied and changing plant life in the sea; since it forms the food of the krill, which is itself the whale food And, in addiiton, we must learn all we can of the'-other anitials which live where whale:food lives, since all life ix the sea is.inter-related;

These researches. may be compared with agricultural research on-land. Thi production of beef or milk depends upor the consumption by the animal of plan! growth, and the quality of the plants which in turn depeiids on the native 0 the salt content of the soil, will affect the product-the beef or the milk, Bui researches into’ such questions ashore ‘are subject.to control. Experiments cai be staged: and the conditions can b varied, as for example by growing dif ferent crops and by feeding those crop with different fertilisers. No such con trolled experiments are possible ut sea and our researches must be repeater over many years if we are to relat therh with the varying behaviou wot thi whales, The Discovery IT is continuin which was commenced in 1926; an which has been repeated every yea since on the whalitig grounds. of th Falkland Dependencies. The condition in these whaling grounds pre ixiter-relat ed with circum-polar conditions an can only be fully explained when thes conditions are known. That is the rea son for our. presencé here. We are g¢ ing around the Antarctic continent in | series’ of V-shaped cruises, makin daily observations on the water and th animal life on the surface and in dee water. Thé instruments with whie thé water samples from all depths ax obtained, and.the nets with which cou parable quantities of plants. and an mals are fished from various layers ¢ the sea, are’ all specially designed fc such work. wor!