Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1898-07-06
GREAT DECLINE IN WHALING.
Almost Complete Failure of the Eng
IiSh Catch This Year

1ish Catch This Year.
With the return of the Davis straits
vessel 1t is possible to estimate tbs re-
suits achieved by the Scotch whalcrs
during last season. The catch on this
ground is worth 614,040, of which G12.-
and the balance oil. On the Greenland
ground the season was an almost COM
plete failure, one vessel (the Balaenal
having caught only one fish, which gave
twelve hundred-Weigh of bone and sixty
tons OF oil, worth in all f23OO. In order
TO Ill up, IN default Of whales, the ships
turned their attention to Franz Josef
lanq, where Walrus are plentiful, ard
the Balaena captured round 600. whose
SKINS will bring $4,000. SO far as this
one WhaIer is concerned, last seasons
operations do not involve loss of money,
but we doubt if the Diana's eighty wal
rus and seven bears, the Actiye's spy-
enty Walrus and forty seals, and the
Polar Stars 3o1 seals and two bears will
Orlng III sufficient money to COMPENSATE
Tor their several outfits To any one &C.
quaInted with the past history of the
whaling industry, these results are sad
denng. AS compared with last year,
the Davis straits return shows an in
crease, but both grounds have yielded
less than in 1894, when from Davis
straits the ships brought home $50 tons
OF oil and twelve and One-half tons of
bone, and from Greenland 1919 tons of
bottle-nosed whale and seal oil, and one
and one-half tons of bone, worth iii all
about f31, 900.
The introduction of steam forty years
ago marked a new era in whaling, and
enabled better results to be obtained
But, unfortunately, by that time the num-
Der of fish in the sea-''right'' whales in
the North and sperm whales in the South
had begun to thin, and the use of steam
in the capture of the cetaceans has only
served to decimate them the more rapid
~. In the ten years prior to 1858 (when
steam was employed for the first time)
the average annual number of whales TAX
en- by Peterhead, Dundee, Aberdeen and
other Scotch ships was 10, which yielded
236O tons of oil and 1873 tons of bone
worth between them 6124 900. 1t will be
seen what falling off there has been be-
tween 1857 and 1897. But go further
back, and the contrast becomes far more
pronounced. During the four years
1S14-11, the number of voyages made from
Scotland was 1914, and the total catch was
1852 whales, which yielded 1864 tons Of
oil and S91 tons of bone. English ships
in the same four years made 392 voyages,
and the total catch Of whales was 334S.
The average of the Davis straits fishers
was about tWO-thirds of this, and the
gross value of the freights Of the two
fleets Including the government bounty Of
80 shillings per tom, with Gil at E32 and
whalebone at ESQ per ton, exceeded f7O0,-
900 for the one year. Whalebone today
is worth t1SO0 per ton, and Oil G20 per
tun. The price of oil has diminished, ow-
ing to the progress of gas and other ilu-
minants anG to the substitution of min
eral oil in manufactures. But the value
Of bone has advanced for over seventy
years past and as no really effective sub
stitute has yet been found, the price bids
fair to so up still higher in proportion as
whales become more rare
Sperm whaling is in even worse case
than right whaling. A few small
schooners go out from colonial ports after
that variety, and the American fleet
spends some part Of the year in the Pa
cific looking for it. But neither can boast
Of much success. We in this country
were long behind the men of New Bed
ford and Nantucket IN searching for the
spermacetty," and we went out Of it
long before them. But it is to the en-
terprise of an Engiishman that the ma
lions were indebted for the sperm whale
fishery having been opened out to it's
greatest extent. An attempt made to es-
tablsh this branch from London in 1915
was failure. Ten years later the Eng
sh shipmasters discovered the haunts
Of the sperm whale, and in 1888 as much
as 1927 tunS of sperm oil were brought to
this country. From this time. with oil
1T 943 per tun, and with bounties rising
from $500 to f700, it may be said thar
the English whalers, until they quilted
the game, were as successful as the
Americans. They all hunted the same
region Of the line, the gulf
Of Guinea. the coast of Brazil and the
Falkland islands. Before Samuel Ender-
by no whaler seems to have thought of
passing out of the Atlantic either by way
of Cape Horn to the west or the Cape
Of Good Hope to the east. In the au-
tumn of 1888 Enderby's vessel. the Anne
la, under Capt. Shields, rounded the
Horn. and after nine months absence re-
turned to London with 139 tuns of sperm
oil. Immediately there was a rush fer
the Pacific of both English and Ameri-
can vessels, and by the end Of 1871 the
import into Great Britain had Quadru-
Dpd After decmating the ocean on the
Peruvian and CHILEAN coasts. these ships
spread nOrthWard and westward. They
met with much success off New Zealand.
In 1903 some of them had got as far
north as the MOluccas. Had they pene-
-rated a little further they might have an
ricipated Enderby's second enterprise In
1919 that man fitted out the Siren. a
vessel of 800 tons (the Whalers of those
lays seldom exceeded 800 tOns), and sent
ler to look for whales off Japan. This
second triumph was greater than the first
The Siren came home with 346 tuns of
sperm Oil-the record cargo-and, as be-
fore, whalers were dispatched post haste
for the new ground, in order to obtain
4 share of the spois. New South Wales
took hand, and for the first time in 1921
shipped some of the product to London