ANTARCTIC WHALING

Evening Star, Issue 25941, 5 November 1946, Page 6

ANTARCTIC WHALING

POSSIBLE DOMINION INDUSTRY

EXPERTS STUDYING THE PROSPECTS

(Special.) WELLINGTON Nov. 5. Government experts are study- , ing the possibility of Antarctic whaling being established as aNew Zealand industry. They are expected to make recommendations to the Government on the practical and financial aspects, and on such questions as the amount of assistance the State might be prepared to give, singly or in collaboration with the British Government, in setting up a whaling industry based in the Dominion. The whaling industry has greatly declined from the Important position it occupied in the early colonial years of New Zealand. Only one shore station is now in commercial operation. This is in the Tory Channel, Queen Charlotte Sound, and its catches are made from comparatively nearby waters.

Whales have become increasingly valuable, however, and it is to the waters' of, the far south that the experts are 1 now looking. It, has been pointed out .that New Zealand is in an apparently advantageous position as a base for Antarctic whaling. Ships operating from Bluff or Stewart Island would be) a way from their base for only a few months, whereas the British, and Norwegian expeditions are required to spend as long as. two years away from their home ports. Other countries were active'in. the far'southern -waters before the war. International statistics show that in 1937-38 the total recorded catch .in the Antarctic was over 46,000 whales, and the production of oil more than 3,000,000 barrels. A good deal of whaling was done in waters off the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealand territory. Within the territorial waters of the dependency whaling can only be carried on under license to the New Zealand Government for an annual fee of £2OO and a royalty of 2s 6d for each 40-gallon barrel of oil. Receipts from these fees totalled £13,000 in 1929, but fell ,away to nothing in the years just before the war. Most by far of the whales were being -taken outside territorial waters where no license is needed.