A WHALE WAIL!

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17837, 4 May 1926, Page 11

A WHALE WAIL!

Concern is being felt in certain quarters about the threatened extinction of the whale. A member of the Zoological Society recently predicted that at the present rate of capture the greatest of sea mammals would soon be non-existent. In five years* time, asserts this authority, it is likely that not a whale will be found in the sea, unless by international and world-wide agreement a “close season” is fixed. Whale-fishing is a far more ancient calling than most people know. Primitive man’s first acquaintance with the creature was probably gained from stranded specimens; exactly when the first boat put to sea in pursuit of one of the monsters history does not record. But King Alfred’s description of Othere’s voyage to the White Sea is an indication that the Norwegians were expert at whaling a thousand years ago. The Basques of certain Pyrenean districts carried on a lucrative 1 trade in whale oil in the tenth century; they were fearless hunters of the black, or Atlantic, whale. The British whaling industry reached its zenith at the end of the eighteenth century; since that time whaling has been very largely in the hands of Scandinavian and American whalers. One of the biggest catches ever _recorded was that secured, just over a hundred years ago, by a Scots whaler, which landed blubber and whalebone to the value of £II,OOO. At to-day’s prices the whalebone alone would have realised not less than £120,000!