Whaling

• 1. Introduction

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  Whaling, the hunting of whales for products like meat and blubber, leaves a paper trail that begins in the year 1026. That is the date on the oldest documents describing organized whaling, drawn from the Basque coastal regions of Spain and France. From those rowboats and hand-thrown harpoons, an industry spread across the North Atlantic and eventually the rest of the world. By the late 1930s, more than 50,000 whales were being killed every year. Then, in the late 1980s, the industry came to an international halt. How did a trade old enough to predate the Industrial Revolution arrive at a near-global ban? Why do Iceland, Japan and Norway still defend the hunt while most nations condemn it? And what happens to a regulator that becomes, in its own words, a victim of its own success?

• 2. Stone And Bladder

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  The Neolithic Bangudae Petroglyphs in Korea may date back to 6000 BC, and they carry what appear to be the earliest depictions of small cetaceans being hunted. Archaeological evidence pushes subsistence whaling on small cetaceans back to at least 3000 BC, practiced by the Inuit and other peoples across the North Atlantic and North Pacific. A 2026 study placed the earliest hunting of baleen whales at least 5,000 years ago, attributed to indigenous peoples in southern Brazil.

  The Inuit mastered whaling around the 11th century AD in the Bering Strait, using a tool of brutal patience. A spear was connected to an inflated seal bladder, which floated and exhausted the whale each time it dived. When the animal surfaced, hunters speared it again, wearing it down until it could be killed. Vikings in Greenland ate whale meat too, but archaeologists believe they never hunted whales at sea.

  The Basques, hunting from shore in rowboats with hand-thrown harpoons, were the first to catch whales commercially. They dominated the trade for five centuries, reaching the far corners of the North Atlantic and even the South Atlantic. The last whale taken in that Iberian tradition was a right whale calf killed in Orio in 1901.

• 3. Oil And Margarine

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  Whale oil, sometimes called train oil, was important enough to help power the Industrial Revolution. Rising demand for it spurred modern whaling techniques in the 19th century. In the 20th century, a different appetite drove the trade: first margarine, then whale meat.

  Organized fleets of whaling ships brought widespread commercial whaling in the 17th century. National industries competed through the 18th and 19th centuries. Then came factory ships and explosive harpoons in the first half of the 20th century, along with the idea of whale harvesting on an industrial scale. Some stretches of ocean, dense with whales along migration routes, drew large concentrations of ships.

  Germany was originally one of the most successful whaling nations, with vessels setting out from Hamburg and other towns on the Elbe toward Greenland and Spitsbergen. Its best recorded year was 1770. The Napoleonic Wars sent German whaling into steep decline. By the mid to late 19th century, German whaling ships were crewed not by experienced sailors but by sons of wealthy farming communities, taking short spring trips to Scandinavia when their labor was not needed in the fields. Many voyages caught no whales at all, returning instead with seal and polar bear skins. Local historians now believe this was more a rite of passage than a true commercial venture. Germany abandoned whaling in 1872, briefly revived it with mostly Norwegian crews in the 1930s, then gave it up completely when the Second World War began.

• 4. The Commission

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  International cooperation on whaling regulation began in 1931 and led to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946. Its stated aim was to conserve whale stocks and make orderly development of the industry possible. Under that convention, the International Whaling Commission was set up to decide hunting quotas through the findings of its Scientific Committee. It regulates 13 species of great whales and has never reached consensus on whether it can govern smaller ones. Non-member countries are not bound by its rules.

  The Commission voted on the 23rd of July 1982, to establish a five-year moratorium on commercial whaling of great whales, beginning in the 1985-86 season. The pause was meant to be temporary. It has instead been extended indefinitely to this day. When the original term ended in 1992, the Scientific Committee asked to propose quotas for some stocks, but the Plenary Committee refused.

  At the 2010 meeting in Morocco, representatives of 88 member states debated lifting the 24-year ban. Japan, Norway and Iceland pushed for it. A coalition of anti-whaling nations offered a compromise allowing those countries to continue with smaller, closely supervised catches, while banning whaling entirely in the Southern Ocean. More than 200 scientists and experts opposed the deal. The Southern Ocean had been declared a whale sanctuary in 1994. Iceland, Norway and Japan argued the measure lacked a robust scientific basis, and they lodged reservations or withdrew, continuing to hunt under national quotas.

• 5. Who Still Hunts

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  Iceland hosts one of the few privately owned whaling fleets still operating. The company Hvalur hf. hunts fin whales largely for export to Japan, while another hunts minke whales for domestic consumption, the meat popular with tourists. Iceland did not object to the 1986 moratorium and took around 60 animals a year under scientific permit between 1986 and 1989, then stopped under pressure. It left the Commission in 1992, rejoined in 2002 with a reservation, and resumed commercial whaling in 2006. For the 2012 season the quota was 216 minke whales, of which 52 were caught. Iceland hunted no whales in 2019, when demand for whale meat fell.

  Norway registered an objection to the moratorium and is not bound by it. Whaling resumed there in 1993, with minke whales the only legal target, drawn from a Northeast Atlantic population estimated at 102,000. Catches ranged from 487 animals in 2000 to 592 in 2007, and the 2011 quota was set at 1,286.

  Japan lodged an objection in 1982, then withdrew it in 1987 under US threats to cut its fishing quota through the Packwood-Magnuson Amendment. Unable to resume commercial whaling, it began hunting on a scientific-research basis through the Institute of Cetacean Research. Critics called it a disguise for banned commercial whaling. Deputy whaling commissioner Joji Morishita said the moratorium was meant for collecting data, and that is why scientific whaling started. In September 2018 Japan chaired the 67th meeting in Brazil and failed to lift the moratorium. On the 26th of December 2018 it announced withdrawal from the Commission, resuming commercial hunting in its own waters from July 2019 while ceasing it in the Antarctic.

• 6. Subsistence And Tradition

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  Bequia, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, holds a Commission quota of up to four humpback whales a year, taken only with hand-thrown harpoons from small open sailboats. The limit is rarely met. The classification as aboriginal is fiercely contested; at the 2012 meeting, delegates called it artisanal whaling out of control. The meat is sold commercially, and 82% of Bequia residents eat it at least occasionally, despite high methylmercury levels.

  Lamalera, on the south coast of Lembata, and Lamakera on neighbouring Solor are Indonesia's two remaining whaling communities. Hunters obey religious taboos requiring them to use every part of the animal, keeping about half the catch and bartering the rest. Sperm whales are the preferred target, while baleen whales are considered taboo. In 1973 the FAO sent a whaling ship and a Norwegian whaler to modernize the hunt. The Lamalerans returned the vessel after immediately catching five sperm whales, too many to butcher without refrigeration. The FAO concluded they had evolved a method suited to their resources and culture. Their tradition still demands they row a caught whale back to shore; in one case a boat was dragged roughly 120 km toward Timor, and in another the whale capsized the boat, forcing a 12-hour swim home.

• 7. Mercury And Carbon

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  Small whales are long-lived predators, and their tissues accumulate methylmercury from their prey. Concentrations can reach levels hazardous to people who eat too much too often. In the Caribbean, people are advised not to exceed one serving every three weeks. High levels also appear in pilot whales from the Faroe Islands and in dolphins and small whales from Japan. In Saint Vincent's town of Barrouallie, hunters sell short-finned pilot whale and dolphin meat as black fish, though its mercury content demands consumption of less than a serving every three weeks.

  Whales shape the carbon cycle in life and in death. Living whales move carbon and nitrogen through the water column via their feces, feeding primary productivity at the surface. In death, a carcass can sink as a whale fall, carrying its carbon to the ocean floor and forming a temporary ecosystem. Scientists found that large marine mammals now hold over 9 million fewer tons of carbon in the ocean than before industrial whaling, a difference of 9.1 x 10 to the power 6 tons. Even as whale numbers rebound, climate change and rising carbon levels keep hindering how much carbon whales can store.

• 8. Hidden Catches

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  In 1994 it was revealed that the Soviet Union had systematically undercounted its catch. From 1948 to 1973 it took 48,477 humpback whales while officially reporting 2,710 to the Commission. Its total harvest of over 534,000 whales between the 1930s and the 1980s was called one of the most senseless environmental crimes of the 20th century by Charles Homans of the Pacific Standard. In Soviet society, whaling was a glamorous, well-paid job, and whalers were celebrated on their return with fanfare and parades. Production was incentivized with salary bonuses of 25%-60%, and the trade became a manic numbers game. Ray Gambell, then-Secretary of the Commission, said the body had raised suspicions with the Soviets but took no further action because it could not interfere with national sovereignty.

  Genetic testing exposed other gaps. In 1993 samples of whale meat and blubber on sale in Japan showed that 10-25% of tissues came from non-minke baleen whales, beyond the legally permitted minke. By 1995 and 1996 that share had dropped to 2.5%, with much of it attributed to bycatch.

  South Korea reveals how a legal loophole becomes a hunt. Fishermen may keep any bycatch, including whales, and a single minke whale can earn up to 200 million won, about 150,000 US dollars. Recorded cetacean deaths reached 2,014 in 2019, fell to 1,066 in 2022, and stood at 866 in 2023. In 2023-15 members of the Korean Parliament put forward a bill to ban whale meat consumption, a measure that must contend with deep cultural ties and the commercial fishing industry.