WHALE OIL WEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

WHALE OIL WEALTH.

The cable services have recently told us that those enterprising people, the Japanese, intend to invade the great whaling industry which has been built up in the Antarctic, south of New Zealand and Australia. Hitherto exploited almost entirely by Norwegians, with a email sprinkling of British vessels, this vast area— next to the Pacific, the world's largest expanse of water, and without doubt one of its wildest —has yielded its annual toll of whale oil for the hunters. The whale, largest living creature on the earth, has been hunted with euch utter lack of discrimination for years past that the more profitable species—the humpback whale, 'and other varieties —are rapidly disappearing from the seas.

Restrictions" are now in force, and are adhered to rigorously by the hunters in their own interests, to prevent the killing of female whales suckling calvee. That is one of the mysteries of the deep—whales, like cows, suckle their young. And the young arc accordingly called calves. Their mothers do not in any way resemble the grossly mis-shapen seacows of other waters, which are only some 20ft or eo in length.

The whaling industry in the Antarctic in 1930 yielded oil wealth to the extent of some £1,400,000, and in the following year the sum was

about £3,500,000. In 1932 it was about £1,000,000, of which Norwegian ships had collected £750,000 worth. June of last year marked the entry of Japan into the whaling fields, with the purchase of a Norwegian "fac-tory-ship" and four "chaser" vessels for a total of £50,000. They were set to work immediately and have just passed Fremantle on their way home to Japan, reporting a wonderful degree of success.