A GIGANTIC CATCH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 11

A GIGANTIC CATCH

Blue Whale Taken At Tory Channel 78 FEET IN LENGTH A true tall fishing story can be spun by Mr. J. I’erano, whaler, of Pieton. For in the season recently ended he landed a blue whale, the biggest taken in his 26 years of operations in Cook Strait. It measured 78 feet long, weighed perhaps 50 or 60 tons, yet had it been only 8 feet shorter it would have been within the legal minimum size, and he would have had to let it s°This huge whale was more than twice the length and a dozen times the displacement of the frail speedboat from which it was harpooned. It was so bulky that considerable difficulty was experienced in handling it on a flensing slip designed only for the cutting up of humpbacks a mere 50 or so feet in length. Its jaw-bones measured 21 feet; its girth must have been about 30 feet. The weight of a whole is usually estimated at a ton per foot of length; but this whale was thought to be somewhat below that figure. The blue whale is the biggest of all living things. It grows to upward of 100 feet long, and yields as much as 25 tons of valuable oil. To-day it is the chief quarry of the pelagic whaling fleets, and is being hunted rapidly to extinction. It is distinguished by its blue-grey colour, and long lean shape. The humpback, the common whale in Cook Strait, is short and rotund, with tremendously long fins and characteristic hump. The right whale, to-day protected, is of much the same shape as the humpback, but with round fins, and without a “hump” or dorsal fin. The cachalot is easily recognised by its square head’ and long lower jaw. The blue whale, for all its size, is a harmless and peaceable^creature. It is relative! yrare in New Zealand waters. By international agreement, the killing of a right W’hale, a cow whale with calf, a calf, or a blue whale less than 70 feet long,, is forbidden. This regulation was made as an effort to preserve the species.

(Picture on Page 17.)