PROFITABLE RETURNS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 6, 2 October 1929, Page 11

PROFITABLE RETURNS

ROSS SEA WHALING UNLICENSED SHIP AGAIN The lucrative nature of whaling operations in the Ross Sea Dependency was referred to in the annual report of the Marine Department presented to Parliament yesterday. Details given showed that whereas in 1923-24 the number of whales captured under license was 221, the barrels of oil obtained 17,791, and the revenue derived by the Department £2OO, there were in 1928-29 1340 whales captured under license, 122,000 barrels of oil obtained, and £13.961 derived in revenue. Unlicensed Ship During the 1928-29 season three floating factories operated in the Ross Sea Dependency, two of them under license and one not licensed. Two further companies were in process of formation with the object of whaling in the same waters, and both had been promised licenses if flotation was successful. One 7 of these companies was purely English and the other New Zealand and Australian. It was understood that the unlicensed factory which had previously operated in the Ross Sea would return for the 192930 season, and that another very large vessel was being fitted out with the same intent. There was at present insufficient data available to enable any one to say just what degree of intensity of fishing the waters would stand without unduly depleting the whales, but it was clear that if pelagic whaling continued to inciease as it had been doing there must come a time when reproduction of whales would be seriously affected. There was always one safeguard, however, which should prevent the fishing becoming too intensive, and that was that these Antarctic expeditions involved a huge capital outlay and operating expenditure, and when competition became more intensive than the supply of whales justified some of the expeditions must go to the wall. Therefore fishing expeditions would have to be adjusted to economic result. The possibility of such a state of affairs would, it was hoped, force all concerned to realise the necessity for international agreement for the regulation of whaling operations to an extent that would ensure the continuance of the industry by maintaining the required standard o£ reproduction,