The Hunting of Whales: From Aboriginal Sustenance Hunting to Globalized Commercial Hunting Ancient civilizations have hunted whales for as long as both have co-existed. Hunted primarily for their generous supply of meat, whales also provided body parts that sufficed for other basic necessities, such candles and soaps. This kind of “aboriginal sustenance hunting”, as it is known, continues in many cultures today. But with the progression of time, whale hunters discovered that, whale parts--being valuable commodities--could be sold and profited from. But the beginnings of commercialized whale hunting would also mark the beginnings of worldwide whale decimation.
As An Industry Thrives, A Species Dies
THE 11th CENTURY: The Birth of the Whaling Industry
History credits a community of people who were known as the “Basques” as being the pioneers of mass whaling-for-profit. These peoples primarily hunted the Northern Right whale and traded its parts to those who sought them. Success of the Basques' whale hunting trade soon lured other nations around the globe to plunge into the whale hunting trade as well. According to the historical tracing found in a 2007 publication from the World Wide Fund for Nature, International, hunters from other nations including Denmark, Great Britain, the United States, and Norway, saturated their native oceans with the hopes that they too would tap into the wealth that came from the slaughter of whales. With this, whaling blossomed from a regional trade into a global industry. And one by one, formerly abundant whale populations began to be tapped out. In this case, the depletion of the Northern Right Whale was followed by that
of the Humpback whales and Sperm whales, respectively.
THE INDUSTRIAL ERA (19th Century): A Turning Point for Mankind, A Breaking Point for Whales
Many whale scholars say that the threat of global whale extinction was first was ushered in by the technological advances of the Industrial Age during 19th century. For example, the birth of steam ships allowed for a faster mode to reach the whales thus allowing whale hunting to blossom into a global trade. While the advancements in weaponry, like the invention of the explosive harpoon, with its effortless and far-reaching accuracy, enabled hunters to kill whales in greater numbers.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR (1914-1918): A Necessary Call for Arms
To meet the necessities of war, nations began to manufacture explosive materials which were made (in part) from “glycerine”, an element specifically found in a baleen appendage of certain whales. Although the production of these explosives was not solely to blame for the further depletion of whales, it played its part in worsening the situation. Whale historians argue that for this reason, World War I added to the detriment of the worldwide whale population. By the war’s end, whales had been drained out of the oceans of northern Hemisphere and hunters had begun depleting whales living in Antarctica.
THE 1920s-THE EARLY 1940s: A Global Reaction for Conservation Action
The League of Nations (now the United Nations) is credited for pioneering the first multi-government whale conservation effort in the mid-1920s. Centuries after whale hunting began, there was finally a universal awareness about the dire reality of extinction for the world’s whale population, which was then deemed “over-exploited”. By 1931, twenty-two nations, (all of which had economies with a commercial whaling industry) signed on as founding members of the International Convention of the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), and so began the regulation of whale hunting and the commitment to save the whales.
1945: The Birth of the International Whaling Commission
Throughout the early 1940s, appointed delegates of the International Convention of the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) monitored the population of whales closely and were dismayed to discover that even more whales were being hunted in the tens of thousands per year. By this point, Germany and Japan were leaders in the whaling industry and the main culprits behind the continued decimation of whales. Thus, yearning for a more cohesive and effective conservation effort, the ICRW created the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on December 2, 1945.
THE 1960s: Weak and Divided, Conservationists Fail the Whales
Because of their humble beginnings, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was popularly coined as the “Whalers’ Club” in the 1960s. Such naysayers argued that the small collection of voluntary nations failed to enact any effective regulations on the whaling industry, and neither gain compliance or enforce penalties against illegal activity. This is a fact that the IWC admits to. Because of this failure to sanctions, whale populations continued to decline into the 1960s. In fact, according to a 2007 report by the World Wildlife Federation between 1961-1962, over 66,000 whales were killed in Antarctica alone! The situation had become so dire that for the first time in documented history, whalers couldn’t find whales to hunt. Saving grace for the whales came with the beginnings of a grassroots whale conservation movement.
1979: A Sanctuary is Earned for Whales
The IWC made its first widely celebrated achievement by declaring the Indian Ocean a “whale sanctuary”, thus prohibiting hunters from hunting any whales in that specified area. This historic precedent was the result of a decade long battle between several governments and whale activists. Through their determined, and in some cases, life-threatening efforts of non-govermental organizations (NGOs), like Greenpeace and the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature--formerly World Wildlife Fund) earned whales a sanctuary to keep them from the threat of whalers. Both Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Foundation(WWF) made big waves with their extraordinary anti-whaling/"Save The Whales" campaigns.
THE 1980s: Whaling is Banned
In 1982, the IWC enforced its first international ban on whaling, after the discovery that statistics of whale populations and whale catches were underreported.
TODAY
The IWC still faces opposition from a few whaling countries, making it difficult to be as effective in protecting whale populations as they want to be. But thankfully, the number of outside, non-governmental conservation organizations have multiplied since the birth of the IWC. These organizations work with the IWC to offer the regulatory support that the IWC needs to keep whalers in compliant with the laws. They also are the critical voices against the IWC, whose watchdog tactics help keep ensure that the IWC is compliant to its own promise of safeguarding the whale populations worldwide.
More countries support the whale conservation effort than not. Presently, Japan and Norway are the most lucrative players of the whaling industry. Whale populations continue to stagger on the scale of extinction---one moment facing extinction, the next saved from it. Today, whales face more than the threat of illegal hunting and overfishing. Unfortunately, environmental conditions are threatening their livelihoods too.
Source: World Wide Fund for Nature-International. "History of Whaling and the International Whaling Commission." World Wide Fund for Nature-International. May 2007. Web. 26 Jan 2010. http://assets.panda.org/downloads/history_whaling_2007.pdf.
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