Whaling Figure 1. Corsets NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 113
Whaling Introduction Whaling is the practice of hunting whales to obtain oil, whalebone, meat, and various by-products. Evidence indicates that whales, dolphins, and porpoises (belonging to the order Cetacea) were hunted for food and oil from prehistoric times. Beginning in the 1100s and continuing throughout the twentieth century, whales have been used to make a wide variety products. Whale Products The uses of whales have varied since whaling began. In the beginning whales were hunted largely for food. From the 1100s, in addition to harvesting the meat, people used whale oil for lighting and in the manufacture of wool, leather, and soap. The oil was obtained by cooking, or rendering, whale blubber, the fatty layer below the skin. The skeleton was used for building and decoration. By the 1600s the primary whale products were oil and whalebone. Whalebone was not actually bone but baleen plates derived from whales belonging to the suborder Mysticeti, or baleen whales, the type of whale that was primarily hunted at that time. Baleen s flexibility made it useful in a variety of commercial products, including umbrella spokes, bustles, bodices, collars, ruffs, and hoop skirts. But once the manufacture of steel stays for corsets and other products came into fashion, the baleen industry declined. In the 1700s large-scale hunting of sperm whales began. Sperm whale oil was considered to be of a higher quality than oil obtained from baleen whales and was of particular importance as a lubricant until the 1970s. In addition, spermaceti, a thick liquid from the head of sperm whales, was used to make high-quality, smokeless and odorless candles. Ambergris, a substance formed only in the intestines of sperm whales, was extremely valuable and was used in the production of perfumes. The general use of whale oil for lighting began to decline in the mid-1800s after a new method became available that distilled kerosene from petroleum. The whaling industry experienced a revival at the turn of the twentieth century when the process of hydrogenation made it possible to process whale oil into soap and margarine. Whales were used to make these products as well as lubricants, cosmetics, and animal feeds. Early History Early written records suggest that organized, commercial whaling may have begun in the 900s in Western Europe. By the 1100s, whaling for the North Atlantic right whale in the Bay of Biscay was one of the principal industries of the predominantly Basque provinces of Spain and France. This whale species was known as the right whale because whalers considered it the right whale to catch. The right whale was slow-swimming, rich in blubber and baleen, and it floated when dead, making it easy to recover. Although annual catches were never large, they were sufficient to deplete the small number of right whales in the Bay of Biscay. This led the Basques to other North Atlantic waters, including those off Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and the island chain of Spitsbergen (presentday Svalbard). The Basques had certainly reached Newfoundland by 1550, and there is evidence to suggest they may have been there much earlier. The bowhead whale, a type of right whale similar to the North Atlantic or northern right whale but with a more northerly distribution, became the mainstay of the industry in the North Atlantic by the late 1600s. NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 114
Spitsbergen, known previously to the Norwegians and rediscovered in 1596 by the Dutch navigator Willem Barents, became the center of English and Dutch whaling during the 1600s. The English may have been led there by the Basques because many English vessels had Basque crews. When whales became scarce off Spitsbergen around 1710, the industry shifted to Greenland and the Davis Strait. The latter grounds were also nearly depleted by the 1800s. By the beginning of the 1700s, European whaling was beginning to decline, and American or Yankee whaling was in the ascendancy. Whaling for right and bowhead whales was relatively wasteful, the main products being blubber and baleen. The meat and other organs were not used. In the North Pacific, Japanese harpoon whaling began in the 1570s. Whaling with nets became organized around 1675, taking a variety of species including sperm, fin, humpback, gray, and North Pacific right whales. The Japanese wasted no part of the whale. Yankee Whaling Yankee or American whaling began about the same time that colonists began to settle in America in the 1600s. Early colonial whaling, however, was limited to processing whale carcasses that were found afloat or stranded on beaches. Yankee whalers soon progressed to killing whales near the shore. By the 18th century they were hunting in the ocean. Harvesting of sperm whales began in New England around 1712 and spread to all oceans. (Yankee whalers also continued hunting for right whales.) Sperm whale oil was used in the finest lamps and candles. Whalers targeted bowhead whales in the northern areas of the North Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic, while humpback whales were taken in all oceans. Nantucket Island, Cape Cod, and eastern Long Island were the original centers of early American whaling. Nantucket became the most important of the three and retained the leadership until about 1830, when New Bedford, Massachusetts, became the world s most important whaling port. Other American ports with large fleets were Provincetown, Massachusetts; New London, Connecticut; San Francisco; and Sag Harbor, New York. In all, more than 70 American ports sent out whalers. The peak year for American whaling activity was 1846, when 736 vessels and 70,000 people were engaged in the industry. In terms of production, however, sperm oil peaked in 1843, at 19,910,000 liters (5,260,000 gallons), whale oil at 43,884,000 liters (11,593,000 gallons) in 1845, and whalebone at 2,564,000 kg (5,652,000 lb) in 1853. A gradual decline in whaling activity, which began in 1847, was hastened by the reduction in the numbers of whales of many species, including right whales, gray whales, and humpback whales. This reduction was due to significant overhunting. The decline in whaling was also hastened by the introduction of kerosene as a cheap illuminating fuel, the sinking of numerous whaling vessels by Confederate commerce raiders during the American Civil War (1861 1865), and two disasters that destroyed nearly 50 vessels in the Arctic Ocean. The last American whaling vessel sailed in 1928. Throughout this period, with few exceptions, whaling was unregulated, limited only by the number of whales and the demand for whale products. Even today, the North Atlantic right whale remains the most endangered species of the great whales, numbering about 300 animals, despite almost no catching for 100 years. NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 115
Early Whaling Methods The earliest whaling vessels were probably small rowboats launched from the shore whenever whales were seen. The earliest American vessels were sloops of 30 to 40 tons. Gradually schooners and brigs of 100 to 150 tons were added, and by the nineteenth century, ships and barks of 300 to 400 tons were predominant. Late in that century, steamers of about 500 tons were added to the whaling fleets. Factory ships, large whaling boats equipped for on-board processing of slaughtered whales, were introduced in 1870, and by 1925 a whale could be completely processed on deck. Early whaling voyages lasted only a few weeks. As whale herds near the shore declined, the voyages became longer. During the peak period of American whaling, from 1835 to 1865, the average voyage was two and a half to three years. The longest recorded voyage was the 11-year outing on the ship Nile of New London, which lasted from May 1858 to April 1869. The size of the crew of a whaling vessel varied according to the number of hunting boats carried or employed. Vessels that carried only two boats had crews of 13 or 14, whereas those carrying five or more boats had correspondingly larger crews. Each boat required a boatheader, who usually was one of the mates, a harpooner, and four oarsmen. Certain crew members, such as cook, steward, cooper, blacksmith, engineer, and cabin boy, never went out in the boats. The British paid their whalers a set sum of money per month, whereas the Americans paid by the lay or share system. Each crewman agreed to serve for the whole voyage for a given percentage, which varied according to the man s position. Captains received about 1/12 of the total value of the oil and bone taken on a voyage; so-called green hands, or unskilled crew members, got 1/175; cabin boys received as little as 1/3,500; and other members, such as mates, boat steerers or harpooners, cooks, stewards, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, engineers, and able seamen, received percentages according to their positions and experience. Traditionally, whales were killed with handheld lances and hand-thrown harpoons (barbed spears). In the 1860s a Norwegian whaler named Svend Foyn invented a harpoon gun that shot a lance tipped with a time-delayed bomb. The explosives detonated inside the whale, killing the animal more quickly than did a traditional harpoon. Foyn also invented the first steam-powered whaling ship. Faster than the earlier sailing ships, Foyn s steamer was the predecessor to the enormous factory ships of the 1900s, which made worldwide depletion of the great whales inevitable. Modern Whaling Modern commercial whaling began with the invention of the explosive harpoon in the 1860s by the Norwegian Svend Foyn and the development of fast steam-powered catcher boats and steam winches. The faster, steam-powered boats allowed whalers to hunt the large, faster-swimming species, such as the blue whale and the fin whale that sank when killed. These modern developments led to whaling in the Antarctic region, where explorers had reported observing vast numbers of whales. Whaling stations were initially confined to land for practical reasons. The catcher boats sailed out on the hunt but had to remain within some 35 hours of the whaling station or the whale products would spoil before returning. The first Antarctic whaling station was established in 1904 on South Georgia, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Whalers took 195 whales that year. By 1913 there were six land stations and 21 floating factories. A floating factory allowed the whales to be processed on board the ship, but practical difficulties meant that initially the floating factories had to be moored in harbors. The total catch in Antarctica in 1913 was 10,760 whales. Perhaps the decisive innovation was the invention of NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 116
the stern slipway for factory ships in 1925. With this invention whales could be hauled up into the factory ships at sea, thus allowing the ships to operate throughout the open seas of the Southern or Antarctic Ocean, without returning to the land station. In 1931, the 41 factory ships operating in the Antarctic took more than 37,000 whales. This overharvesting led to a catastrophic decline in the price of whale oil. By 1939 the primary whaling nations included Norway, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the early twentieth century more than two million whales were killed by the modern whaling industry. Overproduction and the resulting low prices of whale products led whaling companies to recognize the need for international management measures in the early 1930s. Following World War II, 14 nations signed the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The convention, which also established the International Whaling Commission (IWC), was seen as a major step forward and a precedent for international regulation of natural resources. The convention s stated aim was to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry. The convention also established a requirement for actions to be taken based on scientific evidence. Conservation was thus given equal importance with economics. This was a praiseworthy aim, but finding the balance between conservation and the interests of the whaling industry proved difficult. The subsequent history of the IWC represented a struggle to find such a balance. Despite the best intentions, a combination of economics, greed, and a lack of biological information by the early 1960s led to a situation so critical that all countries recognized the need for effective action. Political pressure, along with improvements in science, led to the adoption of a cautious method for setting catch limits. By 1975 several species and stocks of whales were completely protected and catch limits for others were lowered. As a result of further scientific questions, and concerns in several Western nations about the morality of whaling, however, the IWC by 1982 had agreed to a pause, or moratorium, in commercial whaling beginning in 1986. The moratorium was to have been reviewed in 1990 following a comprehensive assessment of whale stocks. This assessment was a major undertaking for the IWC Scientific Committee, and part of it is still ongoing. In 1992, by using computer simulations, the committee completed work on the most rigorously tested scientific management procedure for any natural resource. It would allow limited whaling on stocks shown to be abundant. Although the IWC adopted this procedure for calculating catch limits, as of 2007 the moratorium remained in place while negotiations continued on the nonscientific aspects of whale management, including an effective inspection and control scheme for monitoring the limited whaling. Negotiations have proven to be extremely difficult due to the wide range of views on whaling held by IWC member countries. The lack of progress led to the formation in 1992 of the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) by Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. The members cooperate on conservation and management for all species of cetaceans (whales, porpoises, and dolphins) and pennies (seals and walruses) in the North Atlantic. The formation of NAMMCO was seen by some as a warning to the IWC that if it did not allow sustainable whaling, members of NAMMCO would leave the IWC and begin whaling under that organization. Despite the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling, some whaling does occur. Subsistence whaling by indigenous people is not subject to the moratorium. Limited whaling for local consumption is allowed for Native people in Bequeath, an island belonging to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; for Chukotka, an autonomous area in the Siberian region of the Russian Federation; for Native people NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 117
in Greenland; for the Makah tribe in the state of Washington; and for the Inuit of Alaska. Norway carries out commercial whaling for minke whales in its national coastal waters, based on quotas recommended by the IWC s Scientific Committee. In 1982, Norway had legally claimed an exemption to the moratorium, which is the right of any country under the terms of the 1946 convention. Whaling in Greenland Whalers from the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, and other European nations were frequent visitors to the coasts of Greenland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was at that time that bigger and stronger ships made it possible to sail to Greenland in the hunt for coveted whales such as the bowhead whale. Many different products could be taken from these large sea mammals: Whale oil was primarily used as lamp fuel and as a lubricant, as well as in the clothing industry for tanning leather and rope making, and in the production of soap products, ship tar, varnish, and paint. In addition, the oil s content of glycerin was used in the manufacture of cosmetics and explosives. From just one bowhead whale it was possible to extract 20 to 30 tons (44,000 to 66,000 lbs.) of oil. Bartering with the Inuit As the number of whales diminished, the whalers headed west. Here they met the Inuit, with whom they traded goods. The whalers traded clothes, textiles, clay and earthenware goods, brass kettles, tin goods, pearls, and, not least, sewing needles and knives, for blubber, teeth, and skin. A shirt cost the exorbitant price of 1.5 barrels of blubber or two fox skins. More and more Inuit were hired to work on the whaling ships. In this way they learned about the new technologies and new ways of utilizing the whales. Traditional Whaling The Inuit who emigrated from Canada to Greenland at the turn of the last millennium were specialists in the hunting of marine mammals. Since the majority of animals in Greenland are found in the sea, the Inuit s hunting culture meant that they were able to survive in Greenland even in times of major climatic change. This situation contrasted sharply with all previous immigrations, where land-based hunting was the chief method of procuring food. The Inuit first and foremost hunted seals, but were also dependent on narwhals, beluga whales, and the enormous bowhead whales that swam so slowly that it was possible to harpoon them from large rowing boats covered with hide umiaqs, as they are called in Greenlandic. Food and Materials from Whales A bowhead whale which today is a fully protected species could provide as much as 50 tons (110,000 lbs.) of meat and more than 1 kilometer (3,300 feet) of whalebone. The whale meat was shared out at the settlement and a large percentage was dried and stored as winter supplies. The skin, which is particularly rich in vitamin C, was eaten; the blubber was used as fuel for heating, the teeth as tools, and the whalebone as rope and cordage. Rope made of whalebone was exceptionally strong and therefore a highly valuable commodity which was used when bartering both with the Viking settlers and later with European whalers. The majority of urban museums in Greenland house collections of kayaks or umiaks. The museums also have exhibitions showing where the Inuit emigrated from and how they lived and hunted. NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 118
Quotas for the Original Inhabitants Today Greenland is, via Denmark, a member of the International Whaling Commission. As the original inhabitants, Greenlanders have the right to a limited amount of whaling as it continues to be an important part of the basis of existence of many citizens. The commission determines quotas for the large whales that may be caught in Greenland: fin and minke whales. Also caught in Greenland are narwhals, beluga whales, and porpoises. Blue whales, humpback whales, bowhead whales, and sperm whales are all fully protected species and are not caught in Greenland. Whales Are a Natural Resource For the local Greenlandic population, whaling remains important. Although the meat is no longer shared out free of charge as was traditionally the case, many families in the more remote areas of Greenland are still dependent on whaling today. Whale meat has previously been the Greenlanders salvation in times of need: for example, in the 1920s, when West Greenland was on the brink of famine due to a dramatic fall in the number of seals caught. As a result, the Danish government deployed the whaling ship M/S Sonja, which caught whales to feed the population. All the meat was given to the local population and Greenland thus managed to avoid the famine that had been threatening the region. Sources: http://www.greenland.com/content/english/tourist/nature_climate/fauna_of_greenland/whales/ http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761572529_2 7/Whaling.html NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions GoNorth! Greenland 2010 Curriculum 119