Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-05-29
CATCHING WHALES WITH NETS.

LII uAO sOOo OAu Noy . Wiz w
of New London. Gloucester. Salem,
Nantucket and New Bedford relied al
most entirely on their whaling fleet
for a living. With the advent OF
petroleum. gas and electricity, and the
substitution of steel for whalebone, the
trade gradually fell off and all the
whalers have turned their attention to
other lines of business. So today, be-
yond few California steam whalers
and the occasional capture of a stray
whale off the coast of New England,
Long Island on the South Atlantic
States, the whaling industry is practi-
cally dead in the United States. says
the New York Sun.
In Whangamumu, New Zealand,
things are different, and the trade is
very much alive. There are natives,
the Maoris. are not only doing big
business, but doing it in a way that
would cause the old Nantucket shell
backs to open their eyes, According to
a correspondent they have practically
discarded the old-fashioned harpoon,
lance and bomb, and are using nets to
capture the leviathan, very much the
same as our fishermen catch shad and
mackerel. The nets are made Of two
inch Manila rope, and are so con-
structed that galvanized iron rings take
the place of the knots in the ordinary
net. The mesh is six-foot one and
the ropes forming it are spl1ced into
the rings. The nets are made of six
sections. each ten fathoms square, with
two ten gallon barrels as floats to each
section. When setting the net the Sec
lions are seized together with line just
strong enough to bear the ordinary
strain to which they are liable to be
subjected, 80 that when whale gets
meshed he tears away the section in
which he is fast. 1t is while he is try
ing to get rid of the net that the whale
boats, which are always waiting. dart
alongside and harpoon him. After the
harpoon has been fixed thrust or two
is given with the deadly lance. Cen
orally one thrust from an experienced
hand is enough. The big fellow spouts
blood, lashes the sea into foam and in
about two minutes rolls over and dies
If there are more whales about he is
extricated from the net and towed out
of the way, and then the net is reset
The nets are always put down at day
light and taken up at night.
The idea of catching whales in nets
occurred to some New Zealanders
named Cook about two years ago
They had station at Whangamumu,
and used to chase the whales that
passed up the coast in the ordinary
manner. They were rarely successful
as the whales were generally going at
the rate of five knots, travelling from
the seas south of New Zealand to the
warm waters of the tropics for the pur-
pose of breeding. They noticed that
most of the whales passed between the
mainland and small rock about 100
yards from shore, and the idea of
placing net across that passage &C.
CURED to them.
A net was accordingly made in one
length. and was suspended from a wire
cable stretched from rock to shore. The
very first whale to come along simply
made rope yarns Of that net. In fact.
the net seemed to inconvenience the
whale SO slightly that most men would
have given up the project as an impos-
sibility. But the Cooks were not easily
discouraged. They thought the mat
ter over, and the result was the con-
struction Of net in sections and the
successful capture Of the whales. Last
season, although the rough weather in
terfered with the nets. eleven whales
of the humpback species were caught
They ranged from 40 to go feet in
length.
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