PICTON WHALERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21089, 15 July 1938, Page 7

PICTON WHALERS

THE SEASON S CATCH By lelegrnph I'it-ss Association WELLINGTON, July 14. Tire speedboat whalers of Cook fetrait have already caught 53 whales this season, said Mr Joe Perano, owner of a station at Whekenui Bay, Tory Channel, in an interview. The kill includes a SO-ton blue whale, the biggest yet towed into Tory Channel, and also the first sperm whale that has fallen to their harpoons. The blue I whale was 93 feet in length, 14 feet thick, 40 feet in girt.i, and was estimated to weigh 90 tons. Previously the biggest rendered down at the factory was another blue whale, taken last year. It was 78 feet long, and 30 feet in girth, but, being in poor condition, it weighed only 60 tons. The record-breaker was a cow whale. On being cut up, it was found to contain a baby whale, perfectly formed in every detail, but only 4i inches long. In contrast to its parent's vast magnitude, it weighed only two ounces. Mr

Perano is keeping it preserved in methylated spirit, along with many other curious marine phenomena collected in a quarter of a century of whaling.