SOUTH SEA WHALES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19753, 28 September 1927, Page 11

SOUTH SEA WHALES.

RESEARCH BY SCIENTISTS. AVERTING EXTERMINATION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received September 27, 5.28 p.m.) A. and N.Z. RUGBY, Sept, 26. Tho expedition to the Antarctic which has just been completed by the ship Discovery was organised principally with the object of preventing the extermination of whales in the Sooth. They have been practically exterminated in the North. From the research standpoint the voyage has been a .complete success in spite of extremely rough weather. A research station has been established at Grytvick, South Georgia, where I>r, S. W. Kemp, the director of the scientific work, left some members of his staff to continue a statistical study of whales. Much of the information obtained has still (o be sifted and some time must elapse before results are obtained from the work done in marking whales. Humpbacked whales were hunted very extensively some years ago, and it was possible this fact might have changed their routes of migration, and that they were not in reality so scarce, as they seemed ! to be. The 1925-26 season was extraor- ! dinarily good both in South Georgia and the South Shetlands, but the 1926-27 season, although it was good in South Georgia, had been almost a complete failure in the South Shetlands. That would appear to have been due to physical conditions of which scientists are at present ignorant. From the data obtained it is hoped a policy will he evolved which will prevent the wholesale extermination of whales.