CO885-(23-24) — Page 182

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 885

23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

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7 May 1914.]

summer.

WHALING COMMITTEE:

Dr. JOHAN HJORT.

The

been observed to pair at different seasons, about the New Year, in the spring, as well as in summer. young appear to be born, for the most part, during the autumn or winter months; this is, however, subject to considerable variation, and may also occur in spring or Newly-born whales, about 20 ft. in length.are often met with following their mothers off the Fin- mark coast from April to June. Of the females taken in Finmark waters during the summer months, about one-fifth were gravid, at times, a gravid female has been found to be accompanied by a young one as yet nweaned. That would appear to prove that they can have young in two succeeding years. The period of gravidity does not in all probability exceed 10 to 12 months (which is concluded from all these measure. meuts) and it seems likely that certain females are able to bear two years in succession. The measurements embraced some 140 specimens of this species, and indi- cate that the fortus in most cases, as mentioned above, attained its full growth during the winter, or at a time of the year when these whales are rarely taken in our waters. I could give you a great amount more detail, if you like.

764. I think it would be hardly worth while when you are to give us a detailed memorandum later?—I would only like to say, that with regard to this spec ́es there is, as far as I can see, very little regularity in the time for the pairing and breeding, and in any case one must confess that there are a great number of exceptions. With regard to the Humpback. I believe personally that the circumstances are different. I might, therefore, perhaps read a few notes about this species. When the schools of Humpbacked whales make their appearance during the first mouths of the year (they are leaving the coast to go south-west) on the coast of Fiumarken (during their breeding migration from the Barentz Sea to the south-west) the unborn young are large, almost fully grown as a rule, with an average length of 12 to 14 ft. A great many of them migrate west with fetuses from 12 to 14ft. long. That has been a well established rule. Two females taken outside Tufjord on the 10th of March 1893 had each a fetus measuring 14 ft. (43 metres). Another female 48 ft. long taken at Jarfjord on the 10th March 1893 contained a foetus 12 ft. long. Simul- taneously with these almost fully grown specimens, however, quite small ones have occasionally, but very rarely, been found measuring from 11 to 6ft. or about 14 metres (Varangerfjord, March 1898 and 10th March 1894). Finally, a female taken in Varangerfjord on the 11th March 1833 was found to contain a fœtus almost fully grown, close on 15 ft. long. They arrive, as I said before, in the summer time, and in June the fœtuses have been found to be between 200 and 300 millimetree long, and in July between 200 and 600 millimetree. Of those females taken in Norwegian waters only the larger ones of about 45 ft. long have as a rule been found in a gravid state. A female in birth throes stranded at Karmien on the west coast in April 1864. These examples here, which could be increased in number, will show you how the material has been collected, and I will confine myself to giving you an idea of what kind of material we are able to lay before you in a greater mass if you want it.

765. You have the great advantage of other persons who have given us evidence. that you have the material within reach you have records to draw from ?-With regard to the Antarctic I have no material yet; I have only the information obtained through conversations which I have had with the whalers, but this informa- tion corresponds very closely with the exact evidence which we have from the north. The whalers have offered to give me the material in detail which I wish next season, and I venture to offer the Committee a collection of very extensive material on this subject.

766. I think, incidentally, you have disposed of question 5, because it practically comes to this, on the evidence you have given us, that there cannot be any thing like a breeding migration, as far as one can see, for Blue whales, or for Balaenoptera borealis, or the Fin whales, but there probably is for the Humpbacks ?

-Yes.

767. I think as far as our previous evidence goes

[Continued.

it was with regard to the Humpback that we had the clearest evidence of such a migration, namely, to the coast of Africa; that would summarise roughly your view of the case, would it not?--Yes, I believe the If they go Humpbacks migrate to the continents. from South Georgis to the coast of Africa I don't know.

788. And only in the case of the Humpback is there evidence of a breeding migration ?--Yes, with excep tions, as I have said.

769. But a fairly general rule?—Yes.

770. There was one other point I would like to ask a question upon. You said, I think, about the Blue whale, that females with young had been found with a slightly developed foetus in them?—Yes.

771. And from that it was arguable that they might calve." to use that expression, in successive years Yes, they night.

772. But on the other hand, it would be oqually consistent, would it not, with a longer period of gesta tion-in fact, on the whole, one would have thought possibly more consistent?-Yes, they would not then, of course, be able to calve every year. At the same time these species have no certain time of the year for breeding,

773. You would not have a yearly batoh, so to

■peak?—No, but they might start at once again.

774. What it does show is not so much that the period of gestation is not more than twelve months as that it shows that they begin again to reproduce themselves without much interval? That is so.

775. About the age at maturity, have you any evi- dence to show at what age the young whale becomes mature? Perhaps, I might say, that we regard that question as rather important, because one of the argu- ments put before us as an argument supporting the risk of the extinction of whales is that they reproduce themselves very slowly, and that they reach maturity slowly, and, therefore, it is rather like destroying elephants on the same scale, putting that as an exaggerated view of the case. If the period which it takes the whale to reach maturity is very long, rapid destruction of the whales must mean the rapid extino- tion of the race! The only really exact and reliable evidence that I have been able to find upon, if I may call it, the rate of growth, is for the first year, because there is some real experience. There is one instance which is known; from Finmarken a whale (I believe it was a Fin whale, but I do not remember what species it WES) was observed in May with a quite recently born young one, and this whale had been attacked and had a hole in the back. For this reason the fishermen know it personally." and they followed this whale with the young all the summer through. In the autumn the young one had a length of between 40 and 50 ft. That is one of the very few exact positive studies of the same animal which I can give you, but there is very much more experience of large young ones between 40 and 50 ft. long sucking. You do not know how long a time they have been sucking, bat it is not very likely that It is an they have been sucking for many years. assumption, of course, that it is a short period, but it is Bery natural assumption, I think. I do not say that 1 am able to state how long the time is. but it must have been a very rapid rate of growth. That seems absolutely certain. It might, of course, on the other hand, be supposed that the rate of growth in very rapid in the first year and then slow afterwards; that we do. not know anything at all about.

776. Still, if I might interpose a question, you, as a biologist. would agree, would you not, that it is very unusual to get very rapid growth in the early stages and a slow growth afterwards?-I think it is very un-, likely, but I say we have no facts. The only thing we can do on the basis of the material in hand, and that material which I hope to collect, if the Committee wants me to do so, from the Antarctic in the coming season, is to consider the size of the female, the smallest and largest sizes of the gravid female, which will, of course, give some preliminary but not very exact idea as to whether there is a great range from the smallest gravid female to the largest. For this reason I gave you some facts: I do not know if you are aware that I mentioned

7 May 1914.]

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Dr. JOHAN HJORT.

the smallest size at which they have been observed to be gravid. I have made several notes with regard to that: For instance, the Fin whale is from 60 ft. to about 90 ft. One would be inclined to conclude from that that they must in any case reach an age of several years and brood several times in their life. More information of this kind is not available either at present nor with present methods.

777. No method for age determination has been yet devised-No. The only method which I can think of would be marking experimente, and we are considering marking experimenta. With marking experiments it would, of course, be impossible to note more than the approximate size when you shot the mark into the fish; you could not take the whale and measure it and let it loose again, as it would be rather a difficult process. 778. So that there is really no more to be said upon that?—I cannot tell you anything more.

779. Then there is a final question which we ask all our witnesses, and that is whether they have any sug- gestions to make, first as to whether protection is now necessary, and secondly, as to what protection can be afforded, and especially, if possible, without any immediate damage to the persons engaged in the whal- ing industry-This is, of course, a very difficult question, and I can only answer it if I am allowed to speak here on the supposition that what I say now is a preliminary statement. From all I have said you will have understood that I have laid great stress on the fact, that much more information can be gathered on these subjects than we have now. I have offered to

Of organise the collection of material of this kind. course, when I make a proposal of this kind, such as I have done now, I do not desire to state final results and opinions before the collection of the material. I am, therefore, reluctant to give any definite opinion, but if I am allowed to make all these reservations which I have done now. I think I may safely, as woll as other people, speak a little about my preliminary opinion, and I am quite willing to do so if you wish me

to do it.

780. We should like you to state what you think on your present knowledge P-The first question which you must face when you regard the problem of protection is, of course, the question whether there is a decrease or not. a decrease generally, and a decrease in the special area --both. With regard to the first problem, a general decrease in the stock of whales of the genera Balaenop tera and Megaptera of the Antarctic. I wish, first of all. to be as careful as possible, to say that there are many difficulties about making such a statement. I will men. tion those difficulties. The first is that there are very great fluctuations in the appearance or occurrence of the whales. I have proved that in, I think, an exact way. When I had to study the whale fishing in Northern Norway, I collected statistics for every year, and those are given in the figure you see here. This line here indicates the number of whales ahot in the Finmark Sea. In the year 1885 it rose up like that, and in the following year it went down like that, and then up again There are very (pointing to a diagram in a volume). great fluctuations in the same waters from year to your.

781. That is in the same species of whale ?—No, my figures give the total numbers of whales. I give the details for the different species in this paper. If I am allowed to send in the proposed memorandum I will, of course, be very glad to do so there also.. That is the first difficulty. When you have great fluctuations in the stock of animals, then the first obligation you must impose on yourself, or on other investigators, is that they shall not base their conclusions on too short a period. If you only look at the question for a short period of years, for instance, if you had started here (indicating), and then in these years here had drawn your conclusions, you would obviously have drawn very wrong conclusions if you look at the curve there, So you can only draw conclusions from a longer period of years. It is, with the knowledge which we have now, possible to understand many of these fluctuations--that they must exist. You know I have just published a book, "Flac- tuations in the Great Fisheries of Northern Europe," where I have shown the fluctuations actually taking

43

[Continued.

These

place in the herring fishery, for instance. fluctuations are very great. Of course, a whale follow- ing or living on the herrings will be very dependent on the appearance of these shoals, and we have a great amount of experience of that kind in Norway, both on the fluctuations of the herrings and on the appearance of the herrings in different parts of the coast according to the fluctuations in the herring stock. It is very obvious that you must take these things into considera- tion when you make a definite statement with regard to the fluctuation in the stock of the whales, With regard to the plankton whales their distribution must clearly be influenced by variations of temperature. The small crustaceans on which they feed are highly dependent on temperature conditions, and variations in the distribution of Antarctic water may alter their habitat from year to year, thus influencing the feeding grounds of the whales and the distance the whalers This is not only an idea of have to go for their fish. mine. During my conversation with the whalers of South Georgia they have told me the whales in some years are much closer in, and in some years stand farther out to ses. If they stand so far out that these small boats cannot catoh them, of course the whole season will be a failure, although the stock is the same. These are difficulties in the way of deducing conclu- sions from the catches in the different years. Then there is another very great difficulty in understanding the history of the whaling arising from the variation in the oil prices. You know that the oil is sold by barrels. A barrel is 170 kilos., and there are six such barrels to the ton, and about 25 barrels go to the whale on the average. The price of this oil in 1911 was 17. 10.. and at this moment it is reported to be about 241. 15. per ton.

The difference between 171. and 24. is that the 17. is about a third less. You will understand that has a very great influence on a possible decline of the fishing. When the Norwe gian whaling at Finmarken declined, it was not giving any good dividends except to a few very clever people who were successful to the last moment, in spite of the prices being only between 151. and 18. per ton. If you have read that very interesting and charming book of Mr. Bullen's, "The Cruise of the Cachalot," he mentions that prices were up to 401. a ton. These variations must have had an enormous influence on the We have had aeveral perioda in the whaling industry. the Spitzbergen fishing, and then we had the starting of the big Sperm whaling, and then we had the starting of the Fin whaling in Norway. These are the three big chapters of whaling history. When the oue started the other went down. When the Spitzbergen fishing was on its decline the Sperm whaling started up, and when the Sperm whale fishing went down the Norwegian Fin whale fishing started up. It is a great problem which ought to be investigated from the commercial point of view how much the starting of the one in- Auenced the decline of the other. I have not been able to do it, but I venture to draw your attention to that great problem. I will try to study it, if I get time, for this memorandum. But, as I said, all these things are very serious difficulties which may bring you to false conclusions. Nevertheless, I am in no doubt myself that there has been a decrease both in the Arctic fishing and in the stock of the Sperm whales, and I believe also that there was some decrease in the Fin The question is, whale fishing off the Finmark coast.

of course, how great is the decrease? A very celebrated scientist. Eschricht, advocates the idea that the life history of the whales resembles very much that of migratory birds. Some birds have not one habitat but several definite habitate-for instance, some birds have. by marking experiments, been shown to go to the same country and the same district in a country although they have been far south in the meantime. Now he thinks that the whales which migrate between Northern Norway (Spitzbergen) and the American east const have definite areas in both seas where they go to. Although they have a large area of migration each Scoresby, whale has a definite habitat for each season. whose splendid book, according to my opinion, is the most interesting book in the whole whaling literature. shares the same opinion, and I lay very much stress