Emptying the Oceans: A Summary of Industrial Whaling Catches in the 20th Century

Late 19th century technological advances for capturing whales, when combined with the expansion of processing capabilities in the early 20th century, created an industry that could catch and quickly render virtually any whale in any ocean. Here, using the current International Whaling Commission (1W...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine fisheries review 2014-09, Vol.76 (4), p.37-48
Main Authors: Rocha, Jr., Robert C, Clapham, Phillip J, Ivashchenko, Yulia V
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Balaenoptera physalus
International aspects
Physeter catodon
Statistics
Whaling
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Late 19th century technological advances for capturing whales, when combined with the expansion of processing capabilities in the early 20th century, created an industry that could catch and quickly render virtually any whale in any ocean. Here, using the current International Whaling Commission (1WC) database and other sources, we provide the first accounting of the total global catch by industrial whaling operations in the 20th century. In sum, we estimate that nearly 2.9 million large whales were killed and processed during the period 1900-99. Of this total, 276,442 were killed in the North Atlantic, 563,696 in the North Pacific, and 2,053,956 in the Southern Hemisphere.
ISSN:0090-1830
1939-2044
DOI:10.7755/MFR.76.4.3