Modern whaling: description, history and safety

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

What is whaling? This is whaling for economic gain, not food. It was only in the second half of the 20th century that whale meat was harvested on an industrial scale and used as food.

Whaling products

Today, any schoolchild knows that whale fishing began with the extraction of blubber - whale oil, which was originally used for lighting, in the manufacture of jute and as lubricants. In Japan, blubber was used as an insecticide against locusts in rice fields.

Over time, the technology of rendering fat has changed, new materials have come. The blubber has not been used for lighting since the advent of kerosene, but it is used to make a substance necessary for the production of soap. It is also used as an additive to vegetable fat in the preparation of margarine. Glycerin, oddly enough, is a by-productfatty acid removal product from blubber.

Whale oil is used in the manufacture of candles, cosmetics and medicines and products, colored pencils, printing ink, linoleum, varnishes.

Whale meat is used to prepare meat extract or, like bone powder, to feed animals. The main consumers of whale meat for food are the Japanese.

Bone powder is still used as fertilizer in agriculture.

The so-called solution, a broth after processing meat in autoclaves, rich in protein products, is also used as food for pets.

Whaleskin was used in Japan during World War II for shoe soles, although it is not as durable as regular leather.

Blood Powder was previously used as a fertilizer due to its high nitrogen content and as an adhesive in the woodworking industry due to its high nitrogen content.

Gelatin is obtained from the tissues of the whale's body, vitamin A from the liver, adrenocorticotropic hormone from the pituitary gland, ambergris from the intestines. For a long time, insulin was extracted from the pancreas in Japan.

Now almost no whalebone is used, which at one time was necessary for the manufacture of corsets, high wigs, crinolines, umbrellas, kitchen utensils, furniture and many other useful things. Until now, there are handicrafts made from the teeth of sperm whales, pilot whales and killer whales.

In a word, today the whales are completely utilized.

History of whaling

The birthplace of whaling can be consideredNorway. Already in the rock paintings of the settlements, which are four thousand years old, there are scenes of whale hunting. And from there come the first evidence of regular whaling in Europe in the period 800-1000 AD. e.

In the 12th century, the Basques hunted whales in the Bay of Biscay. From there, whaling moved as far north as Greenland. The Danes, followed by the British, hunted whales in the waters of the Arctic. Whalers came to the east coast of North America in the 17th century. At the beginning of the same century, a similar craft was born in Japan.

In those distant times, the fleet was sailing. Whaling sailboats were small, with little cargo capacity, and not very manoeuvrable. Therefore, they hunted bowhead and Biscay whales from rowing boats with hand harpoons and butchered them right in the sea, taking only blubber and whalebone. Besides the fact that these animals are small, they also do not sink when killed, they can be tied to a boat and towed to the shore or ship. Only the Japanese took to the sea flotillas of small boats with nets.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the geography of whaling expanded, capturing the southern part of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, South Africa and the Seychelles. In the north, whalers began to hunt bowhead and smooth whales, and later humpback whales in Greenland, in the Davis Strait and near Svalbard, in the Beaufort, Bering and Chukchi Seas.

The time has come when a new design harpoon was invented, which, with minor changes, still existspores, and a harpoon gun. At about the same time, sailing ships were replaced by steam-powered ones, with greater speed and maneuverability and significantly larger sizes. At the same time, whaling could not help but change. The 19th century, with the development of technology, led to the almost complete extermination of populations of right whales and bowhead whales, so much so that at the beginning of the next century the British whaling in the Arctic ceased to exist. The center of hunting for marine mammals has moved to the Pacific Ocean, to Newfoundland and the West coast of Africa.

Whaling reached the West Antarctic Islands in the 20th century. Large floating factories in wind-sheltered bays, later motherships, with the advent of which whalers ceased to depend on the coast, led to the creation of flotillas operating on the high seas. New methods of processing whale oil, which has become a raw material in the production of nitroglycerin for dynamite, have led to the fact that whales have become, among other things, a strategic object of fishing.

In 1946, the International Whaling Commission was established, which later became the working body of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which was joined by almost all countries that produce whales.

From the beginning of the era of commercial whaling until the Second World War, Norway, Great Britain, Holland, and the USA were leaders in this field. After the war, they were replaced by Japan, followed by the Soviet Union.

Harpoons and harpoon guns

From the middle of the 19th century to the present day, whaling has been indispensable without a harpoon gun.

Norwegian whaler Sven Foyninvented a harpoon of a new design and a cannon for it. It was a heavy weapon weighing 50 kg and two meters long, such a spear-grenade, at the end of which paws were mounted, opening already in the body of a whale and holding it like an anchor, preventing it from drowning. A metal box with gunpowder and a glass vessel with sulfuric acid were also attached there, which served as a fuse when it was broken by the base of the opening paws inside the wounded animal. This vessel later replaced the remote fuse.

As before, so now the harpoons are made of extremely elastic Swedish steel, they do not break even with the most powerful jerks of the whale. A strong line several hundred meters long is connected to the harpoon.

The firing range of a gun with a barrel length of about one meter and a channel diameter of 75-90 mm reached 25 meters. This distance was quite enough, because usually the ship approached the whale almost closely. At first, the gun was loaded from the muzzle, but with the invention of smokeless powder, the design changed, and it was loaded from the breech. By design, the harpoon gun does not differ from a conventional artillery gun with a simple aiming and launching mechanism, the quality and efficiency of shooting, both before and now, depend on the skill of the harpooner.

Whaling ship

From the time of the construction of the first steam whaling ships to the current steam and diesel whaling ships, despite the development of technology, the basic principles have not changed. An ordinary whaler has a blunt bow and stern, widely collapsed cheekbones, a rudderbalancing type, providing increased maneuverability of the vessel, very low sides and a high forecastle, develops a speed of up to 20 knots (land speed 37 km/h). The power of a steam or diesel plant is about 5 thousand liters. With. The vessel is equipped with navigational and search instruments.

The armament consists of a harpoon cannon, a winch to pull the whale to the side, a compressor to pump air into the carcass and ensure its buoyancy, a damping system invented by Foyn with coil springs and pulleys to prevent the line from breaking during the jerks of the harpooned animal.

Work of whalers

The conditions for hunting marine mammals have changed, and it would seem that the safety of whaling is not needed. But it's not.

Whaling takes place in northern seas hundreds of miles from the coast or mother ship, often during storms.

Big, powerful, fast boats hunt minke whales. Just bringing a modern whaling ship to a blue whale is already no small art. And now, despite the search instruments, the sentinel is sitting on the mast in the "crow's nest", and the harpooner has to guess the direction of the huge animal and adjust to its speed, standing at the helm. An experienced hunter can steer the ship so that the head of a whale that emerges to take a breath of air is close to the bow of the ship so close that you can look into the huge blowholes of the animal. At this moment, the harpooner passes the helm to the helmsman and runs from the captain's bridge tocannon. Further, he not only monitors the movements of the animal, but also directs the helm.

When a whale swallows air, lowers its head under the water, its back is shown above the surface, at this moment the harpooner shoots, carefully aiming. Usually one hit is not enough, the whale is hauled out like a fish, the ship comes closer to it, and another shot follows.

The carcass is pulled to the surface with a winch, inflated with air through the tube and a pole with a pennant or buoy is stuck into which a radio transmitter is mounted, the ends of the tail fins are cut off, a serial number is cut out on the skin and left to drift.

At the end of the hunt, all drifting carcasses are picked up and towed to the queen ship or coast station.

Coast stations

The shore station is formed around a large slipway with powerful winches, on which whale carcasses are lifted for cutting, and carving knives. Boilers are located on both sides: on the one hand - for melting blubber, on the other - for processing meat and bones under pressure. In drying ovens, bones and meat, after rendering fat, are dried and crushed by loops of heavy chains that are suspended inside cylindrical ovens, and then ground into powder in special mills and packed in bags. Finished products are stored in warehouses and in tanks. Vertical autoclaves and rotary kilns are installed at modern shore stations.

Process control and analysisblubber are performed in a chemical laboratory.

Floating factories

During the heyday of floating factories, which are now dying off, they were first used by converted large merchant or passenger ships.

The carcasses were butchered in the water, only the fat layer was taken on board, which was melted right on board, and the carcasses were thrown into the sea to be eaten by fish. Coal reserves were limited, there was not enough space, so equipment for the production of fertilizers was not installed on ships. Carcasses were used irrationally, but floating factories had several advantages. First, there was no need to rent land for a coastal station. Secondly, the mobility of the factory made it possible to deliver the blubber to its destination on the same ship, without pumping from shore tanks.

Already in the 20th century, ocean whaling ships began to be built, which were equipped with the latest technology, they could store large supplies of fuel and drinking water. These were mother ships, to which entire fleets of small whalers were assigned.

The technological process of cutting and processing fat on such ships, despite the difference in equipment, was about the same as at coastal stations.

Many factories have equipment for freezing sirloin whale meat, which is used as food.

Modern whaling expeditions

Modern whaling is limited by international agreements on the catch and the duration of the hunting season, which, however, do not comply with all countries.

The composition of the whalingThe expedition includes a mother ship and other modern whaling ships, as well as veterans who are engaged in towing carcasses to floating factories and delivering food, water and fuel supplies from bases to ships engaged in finding and shooting whales.

There have been attempts to search for whales from the air. It turned out to be a good solution to use helicopters that land on the deck of a large ship, as was done in Japan.

In recent decades, whales have been at the center of public sympathy and scrutiny, and the number of most species continues to decline due to overhunting. This is despite the fact that artificial substitutes already exist for virtually any type of whaling product.

Norway continues whaling in small quantities, Greenland, Iceland, Canada, USA, Grenada, Dominica and St. Lucia, Indonesia as part of the aboriginal catch.

Whaling in Japan

In Japan, unlike other countries that have ever engaged in whaling, whale meat is valued first of all, and only then blubber.

The composition of modern Japanese whaling expeditions necessarily includes a separate refrigerated vessel, in which meat mined or bought from whalers from European countries is frozen.

The Japanese began to use harpoons in whale hunting by the end of the 19th century, increasing their catch volumes by several times and extending the fishery not only to the Sea of Japan, but also to the northeast coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Modern whaling in Japan until recently wasconcentrated mainly in Antarctica.

The country's whaling fleets have the largest amount of scientific equipment. Sonars show the distance to the whale and the direction of its movement. Electric thermometers automatically register temperature changes in the surface layers of water. With the help of bathythermographs, the characteristics of water masses and the vertical distribution of water temperature are determined.

This amount of modern equipment allows the Japanese to justify whaling with the value of scientific data and mask the hunt for species prohibited by the International Whale Commission from commercial catch.

Many public organizations around the world, especially the US and Australia, oppose Japan in defense of endangered rare species of whales.

Australia succeeded in securing an International Court of Justice ruling banning Japan from whaling in Antarctica.

Japan also hunts whales off its shores, explaining this by the traditions of the population of coastal villages. But aboriginal fishing is allowed only to peoples for whom whale meat is one of the main types of food.

Whaling in Russia

Pre-revolutionary Russia was not among the leaders of whaling. The whales were hunted by the Pomors, the inhabitants of the Kola Peninsula and the indigenous population of Chukotka.

Whaling in the USSR for a long time, since 1932, was concentrated in the Far East. The first whaling flotilla "Aleut" consisted of a whaler and three whaling ships. After the war, 22 whaling ships and five coastal cutting bases worked in the Pacific Ocean, and in the 60s, the Far East and Vladivostok whale bases.

In 1947, the whaling flotilla "Glory", which was received from Germany on indemnity, came to the shores of Antarctica. It included a processing ship-base and 8 whalers.

In the middle of the 20th century, the Sovetskaya Ukraina and Sovetskaya Rossiya flotillas began to hunt whales in that region, and a little later, the Yury Dolgoruky flotilla with the world's largest floating bases, designed to process up to 75 whales per day.

The Soviet Union stopped long-distance whaling in 1987. After the collapse of the Union, data were published on violations of IWC quotas by Soviet fleets.

Today, within the framework of aboriginal fishing in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, coastal production of gray whales is carried out under the IWC quotas and beluga whales under permits issued by the Federal Agency for Fishery.

Conclusion

When the ban on commercial fishing was introduced, the number of humpback whales and blue whales began to recover in certain areas of the oceans. But populations of right whales in the northern hemisphere are still under the threat of complete extinction. The same concerns are raised by bowhead whales in the Sea of Okhotsk and gray whales in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. It was too late to stop the barbaric extermination of these marine mammals.