WHALE 78FT. LONG

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22916, 20 December 1937, Page 12

WHALE 78FT. LONG

COOK STRAIT CATCH LARGEST IN 26 YEARS MEMBER OF BLUE SPECIES [BY TEL£OtUI'Il —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON. Sunday. A true tall fishing story can be told by Mr. J. Perano, whaler, of Picton, for in the season recently ended he landed a blue whale, the largest taken in his 26 years of operations in Cook Strait. It measured 78ft. long, weighed perhaps 50 or 60 tons, yet had it been only Bft. shorter it would have been within the legal minimum size, and ho would have had to let it go. This huge whale was more than twice the length and a dozen times 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 tho cutting up of humpbacks a mere 50ft. in length. Its jaw-bones measured 21ft.; its girth, must have been about 30ft. Tho woight of a whale is usually estimated at a ton per foot of length; but this whale was thought to be somewhat below that figure. " Approaching Extinction " The blue whale is the biggest of all living things. It grows to upward of 100 ft. 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. Peaceable Oreature 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 relatively rare in New Zealand waters. By international agreement, the killing of a right whale, a cow whale with calf, a calf, or a blue whale less than 70ft. long is forbidden. This regulation was mado as an effort to preserve the species.