Whaling

I

Introduction

Whaling, the practice of hunting whales to obtain oil, whalebone, meat, and various byproducts. Evidence indicates that whales, dolphins, and porpoises (belonging to the order Cetacea) were hunted for food and oil from prehistoric times. For a long time, whaling contributed substantially to the wealth of numerous countries. A number of different peoples at various periods in history dominated commercial whaling, including the Vikings, Basques, English, Dutch, Americans, Norwegians, Japanese, and Russians.

II

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 meat, whale oil was used 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 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 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 20th 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.

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III

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 (present-day 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.

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.

IV

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 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.

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