whaling

An early 19th-century engraving by Le Breton showing the hazards of deep-sea whaling in the Southern Ocean. Before the invention of the harpoon gun, whaling was an extremely perilous occupation.

The hunting of whales. Whales have been killed by humans since at least the middle ages. There were hundreds of thousands of whales at the beginning of the 20th century, but the invention of the harpoon in 1870, and improvements in ships and mechanization, have led to the near-extinction of several species of whale. Commercial whaling was largely discontinued in 1986, although Norway and Japan have continued commercial whaling.

Traditional whaling areas include the coasts of Greenland and Newfoundland, but the Antarctic, in the summer months, supplies the bulk of the catch.

Practically the whole of the animal can be utilized in one form or another: whales are killed for whale oil (made from the thick layer of fat under the skin, called ‘blubber’), which is used as a lubricant, or for making soap, candles, and margarine; for the large reserve of oil in the head of the sperm whale, used in the leather industry; and for ambergris, a waxlike substance from the intestines of the sperm whale, used in making perfumes. Whalebone was used by corset manufacturers and in the brush trade; there are now synthetic substitutes for all these products. Whales have also been killed for use in pet food manufacture in the USA and Europe, and as a food in Japan. The flesh and ground bones are used as soil fertilizers.

History Whaling is of ancient origin, the Norwegians and the Basques having hunted whales as early as the 9th century; the Russians and Japanese were among the leading whaling nations. In 1870, Foyn, a Norwegian, invented the shot-harpoon, which revolutionized whale fishing and made it more deadly, the harpoon being shot from a gun into a vital part of the animal. An electric harpoon has been used since 1949, passing an electric current to paralyse or kill the animal.

Conservation measures The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established in 1946 to enforce quotas on whale killing. It was largely unsuccessful until the 1970s, when world concern about the possible extinction of the whale mounted. By the end of the 1980s, 90% of blue, fin, humpback, and sperm whales had been wiped out, and their low reproduction rates mean that populations are slow to recover.

In 1986, the IWC imposed a moratorium banning commercial whaling for specific species of whales. Only Iceland, Japan, Norway, and the USSR continued with limited whaling for ‘scientific purposes’, and proposals made by Japan, Norway, and the USSR for further scientific whaling were rejected by the IWC in 1990, when a breakaway whaling club was formed by Norway, Greenland, the Faeroes, and Iceland. In 1991, Japan, which has been repeatedly implicated in commercial whaling, held a ‘final’ whale feast before conforming to the regulations of the IWC. In 1992, the IWC established the Revised Management Procedure (RMP), to provide a new basis for regulating the exploitation of whales.

In 1994, it was revealed that Soviet whaling fleets had been systematically killing protected whales for over 40 years and exceeding their permitted quotas by more than 90%, leading to a revision of estimates of the remaining number of whales. The IWC's decision in May 1994 to create a vast Southern Ocean whale sanctuary was supported by 23 member states; Japan voted against it, and Norway abstained.

The International Whaling Commission, meeting in Adelaide, Australia, in July 2000, voted against a proposal to ban whaling in the South Pacific. The proposal for the ban was put forward jointly by Australia and New Zealand. Japan, which still harvests around 500 minke whales each year for what it calls ‘scientific purposes’, was the main opponent of the proposed ban.

Other countries are showing increased signs of active participation in whaling despite the commercial whaling moratorium, with Iceland resuming whaling for ‘scientific purposes’ in August 2003.