Chapter 10 New Whaling Areas

• Main Author: Jackson, Gordon
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Liverpool University Press 2004
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Slaughter; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9780973007398.003.0010

By 1909 it was evident that no significant increase was to be expected in the output of the European whaling stations, which were already past their prime; and in their search for more oil the Norwegians spread outwards beyond the Hebrides towards the bay stations of the old Southern Fishery, along the coast of South Africa and Australia. The steam whale-catchers that chased rorquals in European waters could chase them equally well in other areas where they had remained unmolested during the vast slaughter of Right and sperm whales. Above all, they could move with relative ease in the colder waters of the Antarctic where the greatest concentrations of rorquals were to be found. For all their daring, the Southern whalers had made no impression whatever on the whale stocks in this area, chiefly because the climate was poor and land bases were too isolated for old-fashioned pelagic whaling....