The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-12
CATCHING WHALES WITH NETS
The New Zealanders Said to Have Adam
dOned the Harpoon.@


doned the Harpoon.-
In the good old days the inhabitants of
New London, Gloucester, Salem, Nantucket
and New Bedford relied almost entirely on
their whaling fleet for 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 9TH
er lines of business. So to-day, beyond q
few California steam-whalers and the occa-
sional capture of stray whale off the
coast of New England, Long Island on the
South Atlantic States, the whaling industry
is practically 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 a big business, but doing
it in way that would cause the old Nan
tucket shellbacks to open their eyes. Ac-
cording to a correspondent they have prac-
tically discarded the old-fashioned har-
pooh, 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 constructed 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 spliced 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 sections are seized together
with line just strong enough to bear
the ordinary strain to which they are
liable to be subjected, so that when a
whale gets meshed he tears away the sec
ton in which he is fast. 1t is while he IS
trying 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 a thrust or two is
given with the deadly lance. Generally
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 daylight and taken up at night.
| The idea of catching whales IN nets oc-
| Cured TO some New Zealanders named
! Cook about two years ago. They had a
| 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
| from the seas south of New Zealand to the
warm waters of the tropics for the purpose
of breeding. They noticed that most of
the whales passed between the mainland
and a small rock about 100 yards from
shore. and the idea of placing net across
that passage occurred to them.
A net was accordingly made in one
length, and was suspended from 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 impossibility. But
the Cooks were not easily discouraged.
They thought the matter over, and the
result was the construction of net in Sec
tons and the successful capture of the
whales. Last season, although the rough
weather interfered with the nets, eleven
| whales of the humpback species were
caught. They ranged from 40 to 60 feet in
length.