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23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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23 January 1914.]

WHALING COMMITTEE:

Mr. D. G. LILLIE.

a fœtus 1 ft. long on 29th July 1909, and the same day I got one 5 ft. long of Balaenoptera musculus; so that it looks as if you did not get the same regular size in fetuses for the Balaenoptera as you do for Megaptera. Megaptera fætuses seem to be far more regular; they are either just ready to be born when you get them in the southern winter months or else very small. Copu- lation has probably taken place in the warm waters, and birth will take place next yoBT.

374. You do not find middle sizes?-Nu; they seem to me to be either one or the other, but I am not going to be dogmatic alxut it. The smaller fœtuses are far and away the hardest to find; the larger ones are very much more easy to see.

375. Still you would not overlook the middle size F -No, we have not seen it; we tried to find a middle size embryo, and I have asked the whalers, but they do not appear to see middle sizes at all. I did not find I had to open up 30 females smaller sizes thau 24 in.

to find that one. I should think the middle size would be noticed, but no whaler would ever find the very small I should think, if there were confirmatory evidence from other localities, that all fatuses are of a definite size when ap north, it would be very significant.

ones.

376. It is one of two sizes?—Yes. According to the whalers there is only one size, only the large size.

377. The suggestion one would get from that is that copulation and parturition had gone on in the same locality, and that the gestation goes on during the period they are spending in the south P-Yes, it looks like that. That is all about No. 3.

378. Then we have No. 4?-I put down what I have about it, what I could gather from whalers about protection. They agree that the whalebone whales are most plentiful in the cold waters of the Arctic and the Antarctic; that the next best whaling grounds are the coastal waters on the sides of conti nents with large rivers bringing nitrates into the sea for the plants of the plankton on which these whales feed. The warm, open seas are understood to be the worst grounds. Therefore, for prohibiting the industry the stations on the shore and the 1oating factories in harbours are the only ones which need be considered, because nobody would attempt to get whales out in the open sea on account of the difficulties which arise there. For Humpbacks it appears that the female carries a calf for a long period, possibly 13 months. It might be worth while to have closed areas during the southern winter on the shores of the three southern continents up to latitude 200 south for the southern Megaptera. The Balaenoptera do not appear to have a definite breeding season and it would be very difficult to lay down any close season or close area for them. The Humpback is not definitely proved to have a con- stant breeding season, although the facts so far known go to support it. Perhaps the best method (which is rather general and wholesale) for coping with the difficulty is to shut down the whaling industry for a certain period, say seven years, and then permit five year fishing with a limited number of licences for shore and floating stations. Possibly it would pay a company to work for five years and then know that it has to shut down, and get all its profit during that time and leave the ground clear for seven years recu- peration. Whalers seem to think that the difficulties of policing would be so great, if you only do it by areas, and they do not see how anybody could cope with it at all I have talked about policing with them, and they say they want to keep at their industry while the whales are plentiful, but they realise that it will get smaller and smaller. I do not think that we can speak about the extinction of the whales, but they will become so few as to be hardly worth hunting. The whalers think the only possible way would be to shut down the industry altogether for a certain number of years, which would be fair to everybody, and then let them have another go of perhaps five or six years' whaling and then another close season. Their plant would have to last five or six years and then would be ready to be scrapped. They believe, on the whole, that would be possible, although they do not want it to

corne.

I have talked to them candidly, and that is the idea they suggest. They do not seem to think

[Continued.

that policing would be feasible where you have so many countries concerned and so many areas they can go to na a sort of way out of the difficulty.

379. There is only one point: your idea, I take it to be, or their idea, for you are really quoting them ?-I have been talking the matter over with them to see what they would say. I have had that suggested; I do not pretend to know their ideas,

380. Their suggestion is, in a word, that it should be announced now that at the end of a certain period, Bay five years, the whale fishing should cease all over the world irrespective of the breeds ?--Yes.

381. That there should be a complete shut down? -Yes; seven years would make a wonderful difference. 382. And then you would renew for periods?—Say five years, and they could arrange their plant so as to do that. Their plant wears out fairly quickly, and they get cheap stuff, those Norwegian people, which they would probably be prepared to scrap in five or six years. They would prefer to have a lot of whales and make a big profit, and then shut down. They would sooner do that if they have to do anything; but the difficulty is what they are to do in the intervening time.

388. (Mr. Lamb.) How far out are the Boating factories P-They all have to come into harbours now. The competition is so great and they have to get such quantities of oil that they dare not try any open sea work at all. They would never get enough oil to make it pay. The rough seas would make it quite impossible. The floating factory is bound to be in a harbour, and if you legislate round coasts you would clear the whole thing. It would not be worth anybody's while to go I asked them if legislation were to come in out to sea. for all the coasts in the Southern Hemisphere would they not work at sea? They said they did not think it would pay to try.

384. The old whale fishing was done at sea ?—Yes; but they say now that they have to get such large quantities they do not think it would be worth while trying it.

385. (Chairman.) And, of course, prices have fallen ? -Yes.

386. (Mr. Lamb.) If you had to shut down for definite periods the prices might go up again?-That is quite possible. It might make it worth their while to work in the open sea; but it is rather a difficult job. It would not diminish the whales to any great extent if I do they had to try their hands solely in the open ses; not think there would be any trouble about the extinction of whales then.

387. Probably from the point of view of protection it would be advantageous if the fishing was not abso. lutely stopped, because if you were to stop the pro- duction of oil and whalebone and so on; for five or seven years, possibly there would be no market for it at all when you started again, seeing that the tendency always is in a case of that sort for some substitute to be din- covered, and the old products might have lost their place completely? That is possible.

388. It would really be an advantage if some fishing could go on and keep the market ?—Yes.

389. Although the profit might be much smaller P-- The only thing is to make them do it in the open seas during the close time, and that would not be of much consequence, because they would not get enough whales to matter one way or the other.

390. (Mr. Holt.) Would it be possible, do you think, to take large areas and close them in rotation instead of closing the whole place at once?-You would have a large number of people fishing in the areas that were left open, and it seems to me you would have a tremendous slaughter going on there. It might be all right if you restricted the number of boats and licences in the area not closed.

·

391. That would be a natural corollary, would it not, to the closure of an area ?-As far as I can make out, what would happen if you closed any one area would be that all the people in that ares would try to take up billets elsewhere.

392. If allowed to P-If they were prevented from going anywhere else that would be all right.

393. (Mr. Baker.) I should like to ask whether you think the necessity of carrying on this business by

23 January 1914.]

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mr. D. G. LILLIE

means of a floating factory does not suggest some less rigorous regulation than you say the whalers even are contemplating; that insome limit to the number of whales to be dealt with at each factory and some limit to the number of factories to be licensed by the various governmenta P-That is so I am not quite sure whether they have to pay for a licence for a floating factory.

394. But they have to get a licence for the floating factory from the Government ?--Yes.

395. If the Government agreed to restrict the number of licences for floating factories and to put some maximum (although it might be difficult to en- force) on the number of whales treated at the factory, or the number of boats which fed the factory, you might get some regulation much less drastic than you have sketched out, but yet quite useful-It seems to me there would be the difficulty of policing in that connection; if any whaling is going on at all it would be fairly easy to spot it, but if mere alteration in the number of whales had to be detected it would be very difficult to determine how much more they were doing than they ought to do.

396. Possibly any attempt to regulate the number of whales in out of the question ?—Yes. I have talked about it, and they laugh at the idea because of the difficulty of policing.

397. Do you think any good could be done by limit- ing the number of factories, and the number of boats which contributed to each factory?--Yes, that would be more possible, because you would be able to see whether there was more than one boat at a factory. But some boata are very good and some very bad, and if you did away with a number of bosta you would get

Mr. BAKKE.

Mr. DARNLEY. Mr. HOLT.

[Continued.

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the inferior harpooners giving up the job and the better ones putting more time in. One boat will bring back twice as many whales as another boat; a good harpooner makes all the difference.

398. Did you go out in the boats yourself P-Very often.

399. Would you state what percentage of the whales in a hard you think would be killed P-It is very difficult to say where one herd ends and another begina. When the Humpbacks are all going south or north you will find three here and perhaps four miles away another three. You generally get three or four together; that makes a herd.

400. Could you give any idea of the percentage killed of these three P-If there is a good harpooner on board and he sees three Humpbacks he will shoot one, and perhaps buoy it, blow it out and fasten it to the buoy. If the weather is bad he will not risk trying to If the shoot another, but he will go back with hia one. weather is good he will buoy his first and then tackle another one. He will take sometimes three out of a herd if he is a good harpommer and the weather is favourable. You can shoot the whole herd sometimes.

401. And possibly be would not get a greater num ber out of six ?--- No, as a rule he cannot take more than three. At any rate, they think when they have gut three in a day they have done very well. I have seen aix come in, but they have been out several days to get them. If they go far out they do not think it worth while to come back with one; they buoy them until they get several and then make one journey of it. These num- bers do not apply to South Shetland whaling. There the numbers killed by one boat per day are very much greater.

The Witness withdrew.

THIRD DAY.

Wednesday, 25th February 1914.

PRESENT:

ME. MAURICE (Chairman).

Mr. LAMB.

Mr. VERNON,

Mr. WILLIAMS (Secretary).

Mr. WILLIAM LAMOND ALLARDYCK, C.M.G., called and examined.

402. (Chairman.) Perhaps I might put the position to you in general terms, and then on the strength of that you will be able to decide whether it is better to make some sort of statement or to give us the informa tion we desire through a series of questions and anawers. I think I express the general view of the Committee in saying that what we hope to get information from you about in mainly the actual evidence there is that pro- teation is needed, if you agree there is such evidence, and what practical measures you would recommend for protection. We have been taking evidence mainly on the scientific side to try to find out first of all what evidence there was that the present rate of fishing was a real danger to the whale fisheries, and, secondly, if we could, to find out whether there were any defined routes of migration, or whether you could fix any special period of parturition, or anything of that kind, or any periods at which you could usefully put up a close season. Those are the sort of questions we have been trying to get light upon, but we have found it extremely difficult because the information is ao very sketchy. The first question, if we are to proceed in question and anawar form, I should like to ask you is :

Do you think there is undoubtedly a need for protec- tion? I fancy from your regulations you do think so? -Yes; the whales ought to be protected, there is no doubt about it.

403. You have no doubt that there is a danger of their being fished out, so to speak P-I do not say fished out, but they would certainly be unduly diminished if we did not put some restrictions on them, because the whales may leave. They themselves, in all probability. some varieties at any rate, will undoubtedly leave the whaling grounds.

404. You think they will be scared off P-Yee; for instance, in the case of the Humpback whale, I think that is a very olever mammal indeed, and he scents danger, knows danger, and if we press him unduly he will withdraw. I think also that knowing that during certain times of the year the whale catchers are there he will not come during that period, but that he will come when they have withdrawn.

405. In that case the Humpback would tend to protect himself P-I think the Humpbaok is in a posi tion, up to a certain point, tu protect himself, but what that point is I cannot tell;

you.

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WHALING COMMITTEE: