Whaling industry

“ In not a single country of the globe where shore whaling is being carried on today are there intelligent laws to insure for the future an industry which is yielding millions of dollars every year, or to save from extermination the animals which, of all others on the land or in the sea, have taken the most important place in the history of the world. ”

“ Whaling in stout wooden ships on the far seas of the East and the West is no longer carried on, for the glory and the profit of the industry have gone never to return. Substitute products have come in, and to-day the little whaling that is still done is along the coasts of the Antarctic and Arctic Oceans, off the shores of Western Africa, Northern Japan, New Zealand, California, and South America, and in the main it is carried on in stout iron steamers. Ere long the last whaleship will disappear from the sea and only the romance of a great industry will remain. ”

“ These whalers were small sloops and schooners, which only went off-shore, captured a whale or two, then returned to try out the oil. In connection with this business Mr. Russell had built try works, and he started a sperm-oil factory. The infant whaling industry began about 1760 to attract a boat-builder, then a carpenter, a blacksmith, and so on until gradually there became quite a little settlement. Larger vessels were built, voyages were extended to [Pg 431] some two or three weeks, and sometimes to as many months, the seas being scoured from Newfoundland to Virginia for whales. ”

“ Throughout the story there is a constant search for new whaling grounds to sustain operations and to meet the increased demand for whaling products. As the industry expanded it was forced to capture less desirable species because the other species could not hold up against the onslaught. ”

“ Also the rise of the cotton industry from about 1850 to 1875 in New Bedford drew a great deal of capital from the uncertain whale fishery to the more conservative investments in cotton mills, which were successful from the very start. As whaling died out the mills were built up, and it is owing to these same mills that the city was saved from becoming a deserted fishing village. Then later even the lubricating oils began to be made from the residuum of kerosene, and about the same time wax was invented for candles, which again robbed the whaling industry of another market for oil. ”

“ The South Atlantic whaling industry, then, has reached a critical stage in development. It is now dependent on the captures of the large fin and blue whales, humpbacks having been rapidly reduced in numbers, so that the total stock appears to have been affected. With regard to the other species, the southern right whale has never been abundant in the captures, the sperm whale and the sei whale have shown a good deal of seasonal variation, though never numerous, and the bottlenose and lesser piked whale have so far not been hunted, except in the case of the latter for human food. ”

“ During the nineteenth century the United States became the great centre of the whale fishery, and it is to-day the principal producer of whale products. Nantucket was the original centre of the American whaling industry, and sent her boats to Newfoundland, the Gulf Stream, West Indies, and even as far as the Cape Verde Islands and Brazil. The Revolutionary War paralyzed the industry and many of the interests were transferred to England and France. ”

“ Americans and Norwegians engaged early in the whaling business in the North Atlantic Ocean, and up to a few years ago American whaling ships made frequent visits to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans in quest of the oil-producing leviathan. But it is to the Norwegian that credit must be given for 68 building up the whaling industry in the Indian Ocean, thereby putting in circulation a large sum of money each season that, until recent years, had been overlooked. ”

“ The cod fishery is especially important, dried fish being exported in large quantity, and the swim-bladders made into gelatine, and also used and exported for food. The whaling industry came into importance towards the close of the 19th century, and stations for the extraction of the oil and whalebone have been established at several points, under careful regulations designed to mitigate the pollution of water, the danger to live-stock from eating the blubber, &c. ”

“ The tremendous area of their habitat made it difficult and time consuming for man to find them, and his ignorance of their migration routes and the oceanographic features which cause whales to disperse and congregate gave the whales some protection. Technological advances, powerful harpoon guns and totally mechanized factory ships in the whaling industry have swung the advantage to man, and whales are now in peril of extinction as is the whaling industry itself. ”

“ Whales are diminishing: the Cape Charles and Hawke Harbour establishments are running, but those at L'Anse au Loup and Seven islands are not. The whole whaling industry is disappearing all over the world before the uncontrolled persecution of the new steam whalers. The walrus is exterminated everywhere in Labrador except in the north. The seals are diminishing. Every year the hunters are better supplied with better implements of butchery. ”

“ The Russian industry there was abruptly ended at the time of the Russian-Japanese war and has not since been resumed, but the Japanese have continued their work with great success and today vie with the Norwegians in the development of shore whaling, for by their methods almost every particle of a whale’s carcass is utilized for human consumption.
The Toyo Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha, of Osaka, is the largest whaling company in the world, owning fifteen stations and twice as many ships, and conducting operations in almost every part of the Japanese Empire. ”

“ At one time whaling was an important industry on the coasts of New South Wales and Tasmania, and afterwards on the Western Australian coasts. The industry gravitated to New Zealand, and finally died out, chiefly through the wasteful practice of killing the calves to secure the capture of the mothers. ”

“ In South America there are several stations on the coast of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and operations are also being carried on at Spitzbergen, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, Greenland, and the Galapagos Islands. Shore whaling is, therefore, a world industry in the truest sense of the word. ”

“ Nursing mothers are also protected. The regulations are made by the International Whaling Commission and the number of whales which can be taken each year is determined from the statistics of the populations and these quotas are recommended by the Commission. It is hoped that by these regulations and studies, the industry can continue to prosper. The problems and activities of the scientists, the majority of whom work for the various governments’ agencies, will be considered shortly. ”

“ But, speaking generally, the season was not really prosperous. The station of Seven Islands is worked by Norwegians, who are the most exterminatingly efficient whalers in the world. They worked their own whaleries to exhaustion and raised so much feeling against them among the fishermen that the Norwegian government forbad every factory along the shore. They then invented floating factories, which may still be used in Canadian waters with deadly effect unless we put whaling under conservation. ”

“ These ships have a specially designed stern slipway, up which the entire carcase of a 100 ton whale can be hauled from the water to the blubber deck. When the blubber has been removed the carcase is sawn by machinery into sections and lowered to the meat deck. Nothing of the animal is wasted. A packing factory on board cans and packs the products ready for discharging at a convenient port into freight steamers. Fuel-oil and water, which is distilled on board, supplies a whole fleet of auxiliary whaling vessels. ”

“ In this trade, finbacks and the less valuable varieties of whales are chased by small steamers which fire harpoons from guns in the bows and tow the whales they kill to factories along shore, where blubber, flesh, and skeleton are turned into commercial products. Many published articles have familiarized the public with this method of whaling. But whaling on the sperm grounds of the tropics and on the right whale and bowhead grounds of the polar seas is much the same as it has always been. Boats still go on the backs of whales. Harpoons are thrown by hand into the great animals as of yore. ”

“ The following morning, at 11 o’clock, we let go our anchor off the town of Vasse, where we found three barques and two ships: all whalers—all carrying the star-spangled banner—all belonging to New Bedford, and all, except one, clippers. Every year the number of old-fashioned ships is decreasing, and wedge-shaped craft taking their place: the whaling-service (a branch of commerce the last to countenance innovation) fast yielding to the march of improvement, and adopting the modern model—a long head, a clean run, and a round stern. ”

“ Since 1895 Boston, New Bedford, Provincetown, and San Francisco have been the only places from which whalers have been regularly registered, and in 1903 Boston recorded her last whaleship.
A modern steam whaler in the act of shooting a harpoon gun.
The modern harpoon gun, showing line with which to hold the whale.
There are a number of reasons for the decline of the whale fishery, but the chief factor was undoubtedly the introduction of kerosene. The opening of the first oil well in Pennsylvania sealed the fate of whaling. ”

“ The fishery has spread since that monopoly granted by law has run out, and other people are permitted now to profit by the schemes evolved from Captain Svend Foyn’s brain. Anywhere where the rice-like animacula on which the whale feeds are to be found, there the little whaling steamers may be seen also, with a look-out man peering from the crow’s nest at their foremast head. ”

“ And to me, steeped in the old whaling traditions, primed with the picturesque accounts of real whaling, it was subject for sadness to think of these huge and nowadays helpless creatures being preyed upon so mercilessly. Once the whale-ship has secured as many whales as can conveniently be towed—each dead whale being buoyed and marked until the tale is complete—full steam is made for port, and the catch is hauled ashore on to a sloping plane, where the blubber is rapidly and scientifically stripped from the unwieldy corpse and conveyed to the try-pots to be converted into the oil of commerce. ”

“ In the 20th century the United States has not seriously participated in whaling and has not a single fleet in competition with the other countries which now have billion dollar investments in ships and gear. ”

“ Even if the ship should get full of oil and return home in two years, which, by the way, would be a miracle now-a-days, one of her crew cannot, at the [Pg 412] most, make more than half as much as the day-laborer ashore.
These are facts, and are palpable enough to deter any and all who wish to go whaling for the purpose of making or saving money; but there is another class who think whaling must be the most delightful of all pursuits from its pleasant adventures, its perils, and the facilities offered by it for seeing foreign lands. ”

“ Long ago, before the days of the factories, many ships sailed away from New England ports after whales in the Arctic waters. Now-a-days whale-bone is still valuable, but the oil is not needed so much as in the old times before gas and electricity came into use, so that whaling is not so common. But many men are still busy fishing for herring, halibut and cod, which are plentiful in the waters along the northeast coast and off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. ”

“ The head of the sperm-whale is equal to about a third of its whole size, and ‘the case’ yields spermaceti, which commands a high price; but in the case of the Greenland whale, as we have shown, only a comparatively small weight of whalebone is contained in the mouths of each of them; but small as it is, the quantity tends to swell the account and increase the dividends. Whaling ventures are usually made by Companies, and nearly everybody engaged in the hazardous work has a share in the venture—the men being partially paid by a share of the oil-money. Whalers earn their wages hardly. ”

“ Whaling has almost ceased to have a place in the long list of our national industries. Its implements and the relics of old-time cruises fill niches in museums as memorials of a practically extinct calling. Along the wharves of New Bedford and New London a few old brigs lie rotting, but so effective have been the ravages of time that scarcely any of the once great fleet survive even in this invalid condition. The whales have been driven far into the Arctic regions, whither a few whalers employing the modern and unsportsmanlike devices of steam and explosives, follow them for a scanty profit. ”

“ Furthermore, competition between the various whaling nations makes adjustment of regulations slow and cumbersome—much too slow for a species so limited in numbers and so accessible to complete extermination. ”

“ So we were on the Japan ground. It was a relief to know that much, certainly; but why—why had we, contrary to all whaling precedent, made a passage of several thousand miles in such haste? No answer. But having arrived, our usual whaling tactics were immediately resumed. With a difference. Instead of being kept hard at work during all the hours of daylight scrubbing, polishing, cleaning, until the old oil-barrel of a ship was as spick and span as a man-o’-war, the word was passed that the watch on deck were to keep a look-out for whale—every man of them except him at the wheel. ”