When it comes to commercial whaling, the first country that comes to mind is probably Japan. However, in the 19th century, the United States was the biggest "player" in the global whaling industry, especially around 1850, when there were more than 900 whaling ships in the world, of which 735 were from the United States.
Before Japan became the "number one" whaling enthusiast, American whalers and middle traders had already made a lot of money. For sailors, the risk of whaling is high, but the profits are also tempting. Economists in the United States have calculated that as long as a whale can be successfully caught, the profit obtained is equivalent to half a year's salary of a land worker.
Traditional whaling in the Arctic Ocean
Huge profits have led to a growing number of Americans, a massive whale "massacre" has spread across the globe, and a bloody era that has lasted for hundreds of years has come.
<h1>Large baleen whales: a "gold mine of the sea" full of treasure</h1>
When exactly did humans start dealing with whales? No one knows the exact time, but archaeologists have found evidence of hominidal whale hunting in 6000 BC. Whales have been hunted by different groups of peoples in different historical periods, and the Yupics, Basques, and Indians are among the fanatical representatives.
Map of the distribution of fishing records of different whales worldwide
For whalers, large baleen whales are almost a treasure: whale meat can be eaten, whale skin can be made into high-grade leather and clothing, whale whiskers can be made into skirts, and even inconspicuous whale bones have a "place". At the end of the 18th century, the purchase price of 1 pound of whale bone was only 10 cents, and after processing it into umbrellas, clothing, crutches and other commodities, the price could increase by tens or even hundreds of times - it was such a simple operation that made the middleman really taste a lot of sweetness.
However, for whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries, the purpose of whaling was not only to obtain whale meat, but also to extract whale oil. Before the discovery of liquid fuels (oil), the main lighting fuels in the European and American markets were turpentine, lard, cod oil, etc., but these fuels have their own defects. For example, turpentine leaves a viscous black substance when burned; cod oil production is high, but after burning, it will emit a distinct odor and brightness is not satisfactory.
Commercial whaling in the 19th century
In contrast, whale oil extracted from thick blubber is not only highly luminous, but also has basically no odor. The blubber of an adult humpback whale only needs to be simply refined to easily obtain barrels of whale oil. After the Americans discovered this secret, a number of new whaling ports quickly rose up on the coast of the United States and became brightly lit "whaling stations".
<h1>The U.S. whaling industry has entered the "Golden Age" and sperm whales are "globally wanted"? </h1>
The commercial value of blubber is comparable to "bio-oil", which directly promotes the development of the US economy. At its craziest, whalers even dump large amounts of whale meat and whale bones just to get more blubber back to port. Under the huge economic inducement, the American colonists frantically hunted whales offshore, eventually resulting in no more whales to be caught offshore.
In desperation, whaling ships began to sail to the North Atlantic and other ocean-going waters. In 1712, a whaling ship stumbled upon a group of sperm whales in the process of killing land right whales, and it was this "chance encounter" that made the whalers discover another "wealth business opportunity" - the whale brain oil of sperm whales.
Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)
Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales in existence, with a surprisingly large head and many brain oil silos that are divided into chunks by connective tissue. An adult sperm whale can provide more than 1,000 liters of whale brain oil, which burns better than traditional blubber, and quickly became a sought-after commodity in the United States.
The brain oil bunker of the sperm whale's head
In the decades that followed, sperm whales gradually replaced humpback whales and right whales as the most important hunting targets in the United States, and the production of whale brain oil increased by 4 times, and the market price increased by 25%. The first half of the 19th century was the "golden age" of whaling, and the New England region of the United States became the global distribution center for sperm whales.
To the delight of Americans, a substance called ambergris was also found in the bodies of a small number of sperm whales. Regarding the source of ambergris, the current mainstream view is that sperm whales will dive into the deep sea to hunt giant squid, because the beak and tongue teeth of the squid are difficult to digest, the oil and secretions in the intestines of sperm whales will wrap the foreign body, and after acidic corrosion and microbial degradation, they will form ambergris.
Sperm whales prey on giant squid
Ambergris is a very rare high-grade spice with an economic value comparable to gold. Of course, the production of ambergris is also very low, from 1836 to 1880 the total amount of ambergris in the United States is less than 1 ton. For some lucky whalers, though, that's enough to justify chasing sperm whales.
Whether it is whale brain oil or ambergris, it has brought the disaster of killing sperm whales, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is "globally wanted".
<h1>Oil is gradually replacing whale oil, but sperm whales are ushering in a new "nightmare"</h1>
Whales play a huge role in the U.S. market, which has also pushed some whale species to the point of extinction. According to some data, the global population of bowhead whales was as large as 20,000, but after centuries of slaughter, only about 3,000 were left in the early 20th century. In addition, blue whales, humpback whales, fin whales and sperm whales have also been listed as endangered species, and their survival conditions are worrying.
Swarms of sperm whales
Fast forward to 1859, the year when humans discovered the new fossil energy of oil, which "seemed" to bring a new turning point to the survival of sperm whales. Both in terms of lighting brightness and cleanliness, oil is far superior to cetacean and blubber oil, and most importantly, the production of oil is also much higher than that of whale oil.
In terms of labor and time costs, it takes 2 years for an ocean-going whaling vessel to bring back 400 barrels of whale oil, but an oil drill can extract 3,000 barrels of crude oil in a day! The huge cost differentials have led directly to the decline of the global whaling industry, and the sperm whale survival crisis seems to have disappeared.
Whaling in Japan
Unfortunately, the "good times" did not last long, after the Second World War, the economies of all countries in the world began to recover in an all-round way, and the industrial scale of mechanical products also expanded rapidly. Lubricating oil is indispensable for all kinds of mechanical components – and it is a very unfortunate coincidence that whale brain oil happens to be a very good performance lubricant. In this way, sperm whales have once again become the target of the hunt of the whole people.
What is more frightening is that with the "east wind" of the industrial revolution, the whaling equipment at this time has been fully upgraded, and many modern whaling ships are equipped with sonar detection systems, and the efficiency of whaling is not the same. In the 1940s, the number of sperm whales hunted around 50,000 a year around the world, but by the 1960s, that number had tripled fivefold to a staggering 250,000!
Global sperm whale catch trend chart: The number of fish caught after World War II rose sharply
According to the International Whaling Commission, between 1946 and 1980, countries around the world killed a total of 770,000 sperm whales, and before the 19th century, the total population of sperm whales in the world was estimated to be only about 1.1 million – which also means that 70% of sperm whales have become "victims" of modern industry.
<h1>summary</h1>
Today, although most countries have stopped commercial whaling, a few countries such as Japan, Iceland, and Norway still "go their own way", which has brought great challenges to the global "whaling ban". At present, there are 88 members of the International Whaling Commission, of which 40 countries support whaling and 48 countries oppose whaling, and the gap between the two sides is not very large.
The number of whaling in countries around the world after the ban on whaling was enacted
To make matters worse, 48 of these opposing states are not exclusively opposed to commercial whaling to protect whale resources. In Australia, for example, the reason why it is strongly opposed to Japanese whaling is largely to protect the whale watching industry in Australia, and ultimately to protect its own interests.
It is undeniable that the global whaling wave is undoubtedly a crazy and cruel commercial pursuit of history, which is a "deformed" capital, but also a disregard for life.
What do you think about that? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section to discuss!
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