Tory Channel Whalers To Cease Operations

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30640, 5 January 1965, Page 1

Tory Channel Whalers To Cease Operations

CVctc Zealand Press Association)

BLENHEIM, January 4. The Tory Channel Whaling Company has closed

down.

Mr Gilbert Perano, one of the principals, announcing the decision today, said the company had been operating “far from economically” over the last two seasons, and, in spite of a Government guarantee of £45 a ton for whale oil, was still working at a loss.

“And we can’t see any future in it for at least two years,” Mr Perano said. “If we could break even, it would be all right, but we cannot even do that.” The Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) said today he was sorry to hear of the decision.

Last year the whaling season had been extended and he would have done this again if it would have helped, he said. He said he would seek further information from his department in Wellington before making any further comment. With the closing of the company, the end will be written to a chapter in Marlborough’s history. The

first white settlers in the Sounds were whalers, and the Perano family has been closely associated with the fishing and whaling industry for nearly a century. Messrs Gilbert and Joe Perano have been whaling since 1921 when they joined their father, Joseph August Perano, who founded the firm in 1911.

In the company’s first season seven whales were landed. The peak year was 1960, when 226 were caught, but since then the tally has dropped to fewer than 60 a season.

The company has a factory at Whekenui, in Tory Channel, and two ships, the steamchaser Orca, which it purchased from an Australian company two years ago, and the mother ship, Tuatea.