KILLING OF WHALES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20109, 30 March 1928, Page 5

KILLING OF WHALES

DANGERS OF EXTINCTION SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON’S VIEW. [ Ter Press Association. ] DUNEDIN, March 29. When he was in Dunedin Sir Douglas Mawson was asked what would be the liual result of the present wholesale destruction of whales. Sir Douglas is the greatest present-day authority on Antarctica, and he knows a great deal about whales. He said he believed in the whaling industry, but it required to be under control. Without control and restriction the industry would soon be dead and gone. It had to be remembered that the control would have to extend over every part of the seas inhabited by whales. It took a long period of years for a whale to come to its full size, and it lived for well over 100 years. Lt could thus be scon that with unrestricted killing by the latest mechanical contrivances of the slowgrowing mammal there could bo but one result.

The effect of the killing might not be noticed for a short while, said Sir Douglas, but it would then rapidly make itself felt. There would have to bo an international agreement to meet the position, and Great Britain was interesting herself in such an agreement. He indicated that some progress had been made toward an international agreement to meet the danger of extinction of the whales, and that more would be hnard of the. matter.