PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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7 May 1914.]
WHALING COMMITIFE:
Dr. JOHAN HJORT.
on his opinion, because he was a whaler and a scientific- minded man although he had no scientific training. He draws attention to the fact that, although whaling stopped in the bays of Spitzbergen, the industry went on in other parts. In this way a local decrease may occur although the whole stook may still be abundant. Afthis point the Chairman having to leare, Mr. DARNLEY took the Chair,
In the Antarctic, the catching of Fin whales is of mparatively new date; it is only since 1903 that fishing started, and most of the whalers have only been working a few years. In these years there have been fluctuations, and it is, according to my opinion, absolutely impossible for anybody to have a definite opinion with regard to the question of declina in these places. Starting from these facts. I will allow myself shortly to discuss the different possibilities of how protection can be effected. I must say that I do not see the possibility of making any efficient regala- tions, or any regulations at all, in those parts of the Antarctic where whaling is now carried on without doing serious harm to the industry. I must give prominence to the fact that because of the ductuations in the occurrence of the whales and of the oil prices the expeditions down there are mad at very great hazard. If you fit out un expedition to the Antarctic with three its, they must have 10,000 to 12,000 barrels of oil to make it pay at the prices which are current at the moment. If the prices go down to what they were a few years ago, then they must have 15,000 barrels to cover the expense. It is, of course, a very great risk for people sending expeditions to the other end of the world for this purpose. To establish a close season would, as far as I can understand, hardly be justifiable on the Iasis of present information regarding the gestation. All the information we have tends to the conclusion that most of the whales have no fixed breeding time. The only thing which I can recommend is what the whalers have proposed themselves, and what they are most willing to do, in fact they wish it very much, that is, to forbid shooting a cow and calf-they do not like to do it; that is a humane and natural thing, of course; also such cow have very little fut, and are, for that reason, of very little value. It is, therefore, even from the economic point of view, a pity to shoot them.
782. (Chairman. Such a prohibition exista over all the dependencies in the Falkland Islands ---Is that so? 783. Yes! I did not know that. In the last few years there has been very much writing amonget scientific people about the extermination of the whales, and you know the well-known lecture by Sarasin, where he attacks the whaling from the point of view that he wishes to prase.ve the whales.
784. What point of view did you say?—He does not make any definite proposal, but he speaks about the whaling in general.
785. He is in favour of restriction; is that so!- Yes. As for me, I can see no possibility of the extermination of the whales as long as the fishing is restricted to the present smaller area and not to the whole Antarctic. You will remember the chart, where the whales observed were plotted, and according to which various expeditions have seen whales all round the Antarctic Continent.
786. They have done so. but are not those recorda from very various dates?—Yes, partly.
787. There was a Norwegian whaling expedition which went, as I understand, into the regions of the Ross Sea, which was a complete failure? This expedi- tion was looking for Right whales, the whalers are now fishing for Fin whiles. If the technics of the whaling industry could be so developed that whaling could be extended to the whole Autarctic then the question of s great and serious decrease of the whales of the South Pole might arise. But if you can conclude anything from earlier experience, you should be inclined (I am in any case) to think that it would be far more difficult to reduce the number of whales in the Antarctic thin in the Arctic. In the latter you have much smaller areas of water where the food of the whales develops than you have in the Antarctic, where they have these vast fields. If the question is to keep up the stock for the world. I
[Continued.
think the only thing which might be done in an inter- national way is to decide on some part of the Antarctic where whaling would be forbidden.
788. Preservation ?--Yes, like Yellowstone Park for the bison, or something like that. To turu this part of the Antarctic where the whaling industry has been developed and is going on into such a reservation, either directly or indirectly, would, of course, be to ruin the industry which is going on; and if it is true that the whales have such a wide distribution as shown by my chart, I cannot think that it should be necessary to take uch a step. But, of course, the first thing which would have to be done in this matter, should be to collect much more material on all the different parts of the subject. We should attempt to mark whales, study the whalers' logs, ascertain what time of the your the different whales are caught, take measurements of the whales, measurements of the fœtuses at all times of As I have suid the year, and all that sort of thing.
to Mr. Maurice. I shall be very glad to organise the collection of all the material which you may want during the next season. but I would be very happy to get a communication from you this summer that you wish me to do it. I cannot say that I have been able to discover any other practical idea for protection, than to establish some reservation area, for instance. between two degrees of longitude. That is the only practical idea I have been able to discover. The only thing I have to say is once more to emphasise that this is a preliminary opinion, and the only opinion which I can have as long as no inore material has been collected. I think I have no further remarks to make.
789. Several other methods of protection or regula. tion have been suggested to us, and one of those is the limitation by law perhaps, fortified by international agreement, of the number of whaling steamers permitted to be used. There is already in the Falkland Islands and its dependencies a rigorous limitation to the amount already in use; no further whaling steamers have been permitted to be employed-no increase in their numbers may be made -I have been speaking about the regu lations touching the existing industry, but you seem now to raise the question of forbidding the extension of it. Is that what you mean?
a
790. Yes, either in the Antarctiu or generally on the globe. That is one of the points which might be brought up in connection with an international agree- ment. Would the Powers, or some of them, be willing to agree not to increase the number of licensed whaling steamers ? That is measure which is already in force not only in the Falklands and its dependencies but in Portuguese West Africa, and I believe in other places such as the French Congo -I believe in some parts it would be very necessary, but it is not very easy to speak about it generally, is it? It will have to be discussed in detail for different localities.
791. It is not a matter in which the action of It seems isolated Powers could be altogether effectual.
to be clear that the whales which go to Portuguese West Africa are mainly the same stock as are caught in the French Congo, for example, and protection would involve agreement between the French and the Portu- guese. I just mention that as one of the proposals which have been made to us. Then we have the ques- tion of the prevention of waste. It has been suggested that floating factories should not be altogether pro- hibited (they are now the sole mesus of conducting the industry in Graham's Laud), but in order to avoid the utilisation merely of the blubber a witness suggested to us that it should be made a legal requirement that a quantity of guano should be produced in proportion to the amount of oil-that for every barrel of oil a bag of guano should be produced 7-In answer to this I wish to state that the whaling system which is used now in the south, for instance, has not been a new system of waste; it has been more economical than the whaling was before. When the whaling was first started in Finmarken the Norwegians were the first to realise the idea to utilise the bones and flesh, and the Nor. wegian and British companies in the Antarctic have always tried to do so when the establishment of a land station was possible, but where the establishment of
7 May 1914.]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.
Dr. JOHAN HJORT.
land stations is impossible the complete utilisation of bones and flesh is too expensive. Besides, I don't quite Do son what protection it would afford to the whales. you mean by making a regulation like that to diminish the number of whales caught?
792. I take it the effect of the proposal would be this, that when whales were plentiful and the supply of floating factories practically unlimited. nevertheless, if this regulation were in force, no more whales would be caught than could be fully utilised; otherwise, when a floating factory returned to the port of the Government which enforce the regulation, ita quota of guano would be inadequate. Where now perhaps a boat would take two or three whales and merely work up the blubber, it would only take one whale and work up blubber and carcass P-The Norwegian Whaler's Society have written a statement to the Committee on this question, and I understand the Committee have given them permission to do so..
793. (Secretary.) I have not received the statement yet? Then it will be sent to you to-day or to-morrow, I saw a representative of the whalers here to-day and he told me the letter would be sent in to the Committee to-day or to-morrow, They deal especially with this problem. I am not such an expert on the commercial side, and therefore I cannot say what the economic effects or consequences may be of such a proposition, and there- fore I cannot give an opinion upon it.
794. (Chairman.) I quite realise that that was rather a commercial point, and the only other point I have got is something of a commercial one also; namely, do you think that it is necessary to be able to regulate whaling upon the high seas otherwise than as can be done by local legislation; for instance, the South Georgia whalers do their whaling on the high seas and make use of territorial waters and ports in South Georgia, and are therefore made amenable to the legislation of the local Government. Is there any fear that to any extent whaling could be carried on without the use of ports in the neighbourhood? That is already done with the Sperm whaling; they whale on the high seas and work up the whales at sea?-Partly.
795. But for other whaling, as far as we know, it is very little done, and we would like to have your views as to whether it is likely to be extended-I believe that nobody can tell your that exactly, but the only possibility which I can imagine to bring any danger to the stock so as to make a very great decreas, some. thing like the decrease of the Greenland whale, is this. that the whaling which has begun around South Georgia and South Shetlands developed in such a way that it was carried on all round the Antarctic. Then, of course, the possibility might arise that after you had many years of fishing you would get a decline of a similar kind as that following the Right whaling of the Arctic. Of course, it is ridiculous, according to my opinion, to fear anything of that kind after the few years' fishing in a relatively very local area like this, where I believe the wealth is so much greater than it has ever been in the Arotic. If you fear that a possibility of that kind might arise (and it is very much, according to my view, a matter of opinion, and in many cases in life you must act according to opinion), I think the only practical way would be to make a reservation area between two longi- tudes (I do not say which). You would then avoid destroying people's capital and enterprise and you would be able to say: "In all cases we have this reservation." If it is true what Scoresby and Eschricht have said. that the migrations of the whales are limited to certain areas and there should be a very great destruction in one area, all evidence at hand at present would make it likely that you would make a real reservation for the stock in another.
796. When you send in your memorandum will you please let us know what evidence there is that the whales which are hunted in South Georgia and the South Shetlands are present all round the verge of the Antarctic Continent, that is to say, as far as the Fin. the Blue and the Humpback are concerned ?—Yes.
797. (Mr. Baker.) I am very sorry to trouble you still further. You hare given evidence at such length, and it has been so interesting; but now that we have
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the opportunity of asking you question or two I should like to put one or two more questions. The experience of whaling in the Arctic has suggested that it is possible to bring whales nearly to the point of extinction by hunting. Do you think that with the improvements in the method of hunting whales, that in to say, by steam vessels and floating factories and the modern kind of explosive shell and harpoon, it would be quite possible to bring some species of whales in the Antarctic nearly to extinction if the industry develops there as it has developed in the last five or six years? The industry has developel very rapidly during the last seven or eight years, and I should like to know whether you think there is any danger of the extinction of whales in the Autarctic As far as anybody in judge of such a great and most difficult problem now, I personally believe (and I have said that to the whalers when they started in Norway and they asked my opinion) that there is a much larger stock of whales down in the Antarctic than there ever has been in the Arctic, because the arva suitable for whales is vastly greater in the Antarctic than in the Arctic. That is the first point. The second is, that I believe they are spread over the whole area; and third, that it is much more difficult to catch them in the Antarctic than it is in the Arctic, because you have land only in a few places. It is certainly not impossible to catch them all round the Antarctic; but it is extremely ex pensive and dangerous to du it. And there cannot be any possibility of reducing the stock of Antarctic whales to anything like the present state of the Green- land whale unless the whaling extends all round the Antarctic Continent. Besides, you have in the price of the Greenland whale (sometimes amounting to 2,500, for one single whale) a very important point. It woubl not be possible to continue the catching of Fin whales if the stock were much reduced, as has been possible with regard to the Greenland whale, one single whale being sometimes worth all the expenses of an exper dition.
terest,
798. I was very much interested by that suggestion, because it seemed an eminently practical one, which would do no injusties to any existing industrial in- If some species of whales have to go north. say to the coasts of South America or West Africa. it might be necessary to protect them either on the way or off the coasts of West Africa or South America. It may be that some species go annually to those coasts. and that some reserve there, or some limitation of the number of whales killed there, might also be necessary, do you think -Personally I dare not express any definite opinion on this point, because I believe our present experience is too small to enable us to say anything definite upon it. Generally, I do believe that the inethod of reservation areas is the only method for protecting whales,
I cannot see much business in close seasons and similar proposals. On the other hand, you mentioned a very important thing, sir-the restriction of boats; that may be of great practical value, but I did not think of that when you put the question to me because I was only thinking of regu lations touching the existing industry.
790. I think you approved the prohibition of the killing of the mother whale and calf? Yes.
800. Do you think it would be of advantage to have a prohibition of the killing of certain species of whales over a period of years, if due notice were given, Do you so as to protect the industry in sonne way? think it would be possible to prevert by international agreement the killing of the Greenland Right whale or the North American Right whale for a period of years, in order to give the species time to recuperate and reproduce themselves, and so ensure their continuance of existence? Would you be in favour of that?—Yes; I think that might be done. I would be very much in favour of forbidding the catching of the Greenland whale.
801. One other question. It has been proposed to have a requirement for a floating factory, and for the produe- tion of a quantity of bones and offal in proportion to the amount of oil. I think, in reference to your question whether that was proposed in order to limit the number of whales. it was urged that it would do two things: