Antarctic Whaling Bar To N.Z. Based Industry

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 6

Antarctic Whaling Bar To N.Z. Based Industry

"The Press” Special Service

WELLINGTON, March 29. New Zealand might still have had an active whaling industry if international fleets fishing Antarctic waters had strictly observed quota agreements, Mr Gilbert Perano said.

Mr Perano was managing director of the Tory Channel whaling fleet, which went out of business last year. Whales caught by landbased New Zealand whalers were passing through New Zealand waters from the Antarctic, he said. Whaling in Antarctica had without a doubt put the “kiss of death” on New Zealand hopes for a land-based whaling industry. If severe quotas were now placed on all nations whaling in Antarctica, and if these quotas were strictly policed, it would still take 40 years for whales to increase population to a point where New Zealand whalers could make a fresh start. Two whale chasers from an 11-ship Japanese whaling fleet

arrived in Wellington after the six-month whaling season in Antarctica. 467 Caught One ship, the Toshi Mani No. 3. caught 467 whales during the season. In the 1962 season, only 55 whales were caught in Cook Strait by the Tory Channel whalers. The master of the Toshi Maru, Captain Shoji Nogata, said whales were getting scarcer in the Antarctic fishing grounds. Captain Nogata agreed with Mr Perano that blue whales, once the prise catch because of their size and valuable blubber, had been hunted almost to extinction. Not one blue whale had been caught by Japanese whalers in the last season. Captain Nogata said. Other species of whale were also slowly disappearing.

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