Norwegian Antarctic whaling, 1905–68: an historical appraisal

Extract

In the 1860's, Svend Foyn laid the foundation of modern whaling in north Norway. In 1904, whaling was prohibited by the Norwegian Storting because fishermen claimed that it was detrimental to the cod fisheries, and, in the same year, whaling was begun in the Antarctic. Most accounts find a causal connection between the two events: whaling was begun in the one place because it had been prohibited in the other. This was not the case, for none of the whaling companies that were stopped from whaling in north Norway turned straightaway to Antarctic waters. The pioneer in 1904 was a completely new Argentine company, and the first three Norwegian companies to start whaling in the Antarctic, between 1905 and 1907, had never been whaling from north Norway. It has also been said that whalers had over exploited the Norwegian Sea by 1904 and that they had, therefore, to find new whaling grounds. But this is not true, either. From the whaling stations on the Norwegian Sea (excluding Norway), 1 427 whales were killed in 1901, 1 614 in 1902, 1 769 in 1903, 1 921 in 1904, and 2 613 in 1905. There was, therefore, a definite increase in the northern catches in precisely the year that Norwegians started whaling in the south. The reason for the development of whaling in Antarctic waters was neither the prohibition of 1904 nor a decease in the catches in the old northern grounds. The reason lay, in facf, partly in a steep fall in the price of whale oil and partly in a newly awakened global interest in the Antarctic continent and Antarctic waters.