Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas

Introduction

3 Introduction History was about to repeat itself, warned Sidney Harmer. In 1913, while serving as keeper of zoology for the British Museum (Natural History), Sir Sidney concluded, “It is impossible to avoid seeing an analogy between what is taking place off South Georgia and the neighboring Antarctic localities and what has happened elsewhere in the world.” The history of hunting right whales (which he called Greenlands) around the world showed that “enormous numbers of whales were discovered,” and “the industry had a period of great prosperity.” The number of ships involved increased rapidly, stripping the population and reducing the whales to a mere remnant. Looking at contemporary whaling, he wrote: “In southern waters, indeed, we are still in the period of prosperity. But, taking into consideration the more deadly nature of modern whaler’s weapons than of those which have been almost successful in the extermination of the Greenland whale, it can not be disputed that the present rate of destruction of whales in the south gives rise to grave anxiety.”1 Harmer wrote these words at the intersection of two trends that would define the politics and practice of whaling in the twentieth century. First, whaling was undergoing a technological revolution that revitalized the industry. After boom years for much of the nineteenth century, whaling had appeared to be a dying industry by the end of the century, with a depleted resource base and an outdated product. But with new means of hunting whales and new uses for whale oil, the Antarctic seas were yielding enormous blue and fin whales and equally large profits. At the same time, voices for conservation in the industrialized world were pushing for restraint in the use of natural resources. In the United States, the most powerful mantra was that uttered by Gifford Pinchot, a utilitarian forester 4 Introduction with Theodore Roosevelt’s ear: a resource should provide the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. This simple framework of sustainable use was meant especially to describe how a renewable resource should be husbanded rather than stripped, whether it was a forest or a fishery. Pinchot’s utilitarian maxim was so grounded in common sense that few whalers, conservationists, scientists, bureaucrats, or consumers could possibly have objected to it as a generic statement of goals. The objections came in moving from the generic statement to specific practices— how many whales could be taken? On what basis would the decisions be made? A century after Harmer voiced concern, these are still the central questions. For as long as people have lived near the sea, they have been thrilled to find a mass of meat washed up on shore, so pursuing small whales was probably one of the first things seafaring people did. Whales provided more than food, as their bones, baleen (or teeth), sinews, and the like could be used for a range of things, and their blubber could provide oil, which was mainly used for lighting. Commercial whaling probably began in the eleventh century in the Basque country of Iberia, but the well-known whalers of the nineteenth century were still doing things much the same, using harpoons to kill relatively slow-moving whales, like bowheads, rights, and humpbacks, as well as sperm whales, which as toothed whales offered a different range of products as well as a more resilient and combative attitude—no right whale could have done what the white whale did to Captain Ahab. Several factors constrained whalers before the twentieth century. Perhaps most important was the size of the whale; for the hunters, bigger was better up to a point, after which bigger meant more dangerous. Blue whales and fin whales were appealing for their sheer size, but the prospect of trying to kill a ninety-ton blue whale with a handheld harpoon would have given pause to the hardiest whaler. A thirty-five-ton sperm whale was usually enough to satisfy the thirst for adventure and danger for any whaling crew. In addition, some species simply carried more blubber, so relatively thin fin whales were less interesting than the thickly layered bowheads of Arctic waters. Speed was also a factor, as a fin whale could make fifteen knots, leaving even the most powerful rowers gasping in its wake, whereas right whales and bowheads were usually content to move slowly. Some whales had habits that made them easier to hunt. Introduction 5 One expert concluded, for instance, that “the humpback whale, once the chase has started...