Whaling

At least 19 whale species are found in South African coastal waters. They differ in size: from the 2,7m and 3,5m long Dwarf and Pygmy Sperm Whales to the Blue Whale of 30m - the biggest mammal ever to live on earth. Some of them are rarely seen, like the beaked whales, the two small Sperm Whales and the Pigmy Right Whale. We only know about them what we could learn when a few of them beached on our coast. On the other hand, the  Southern Right Whale and the Humpback Whale are renown and are a tourist attraction for thousands of (overseas) visitors  to the Cape during wintertime. Hermanus is even world renown for its whale festival in September and its very own whale crier.

Mr Wilson Salakuzana from Zwelihle, Hermanus Picture credit: SA-venues.com

In the old days before commercial exploitation, it must have been quite a sight to see a school of Southern Right whales filling the bays along our Cape coasts - playing, feeding, giving birth... Or the Humpback Whales finding shelter and a place to rest here with us going to or from their tropical breeding grounds.

The Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena Australis, is the most common whale in our waters and can be found here during June to November. They were named this by the first whalers to signify that they were the "right whales" to hunt.  They are slow swimmers (0,5 – 4km, with a top-speed of 17km/h) and like to come close to the coast, which makes them easy prey. for the whalers operating from small open rowing boat from land based whaling stations. Other characteristics making them "the right whales", are the facts that they float when they're dead and that they yield large quantities of oil and baleen.  The Southern Right Whale can be distinguished on large distances from other whale species by the fact that they do not have a dorsal fin and they have a double or V-shaped “blow”, which is the spout from the blowhole as the whale surfaces.  

The head is usually covered with pale, wart-like patches, called callosities.  We do not know the reason or function of these callosities, but the pattern is unique to each whale and helps researchers in identifying individual whales. The adult female is a bit larger than the male and can grow up to 14m long and weigh in at 41 tons.  They primarily feed on small crustacean zooplankton, found in dense swarms in the icy Southern Ocean near Antarctica.  The whale needs to consume an estimated 600-1600kg of food daily.  The Southern Right Whale lives around Antarctica most of the year  do almost all their feeding here, laying down food reserves for their long northward migration.  In late April the whales leave the Antarctic and in June begin arriving in our coastal waters, where conditions are more suitable for newborn calves.

The large baleen whales and the sperm whales attracted man`s attention from the earliest of times because of the substantial quantities of oil and meat each one represented.  Subsequent attempts to capture and process these species forced pursuers to learn more about their characteristics and habits.  Archaeological evidence indicates that even the first inhabitants of Southern Africa, the Khoi-San made use of beached whales for their meat, oil and bones, the latter as a building material for rudimentary shelters.

In the late 18th century the French, American and British whalers operated on the west coast of Africa, making their way south slowly, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. By 1791 a British fleet of 32 ships operated out of St Helena Bay.  In just over two years they hunted and killed 1200 whales.  Most of these were Southern Right Whales. The oil was used as illuminant and lubricant, while the tough  but flexible “whale-bone” or baleen was exported to England and used for such diverse products such as chair spring, hairbrush bristles, corset stays, skirt hoops, umbrellas and shoe horns.  

It wasn't just the foreigners hunting whale. The ruling Dutch East India Company opened up whaling for the locals. The industry actually only took of in 1806 with the second annexation of the Cape by the British. Operations were established all along the coast of South Africa and on the West Coast, particularly at St Helena Bay and Table Bay.  The problem was the fact that the small boats operating from land, targeted the nearest whales - mostly females coming to calf. Therefor a lot of pregnant cows were killed and this obviously had an immensely large and immediate impact on the numbers of the Southern Right Whale.  An estimated 12 000 were taken from the southern African coast between 1785 and 1805 alone.

This is not yet the end of it...  Modern whaling, using harpoon canons mounted on steam-driven catcher boats, came to South Africa in 1908.  Two Norwegian businessmen set up the South African Whaling Company and opened a whaling station on the Bluff, Durban.  In 1909 they opened a second station at Donkergat in Saldanha Bay, and at both stations the catch was mainly Humpbacks.  The problem of these whales sinking when dead was overcome by the development in the late 19th century of a harpoon that had an explosive head and was attached by line to the boat. Soon the number of Humpbacks dwindled and other species had to be targeted.  By 1913 the company was so successful that they took a total of 10 135 whales between Gabon and Mozambique.  Off Saldanha, Blue and Fin Whales dominated the catch between 1914 and 1930, while about 39% of the Natal catch during that period was made up of Sperm Whales.  By the mid 1920`s the first factory ship began operating in Antarctica and ten years later 41 such ships were involved in “ice-whaling”, with a combined catch of over 40 000 whales, three quarters of them Blue Whales.  This soon flooded the market and led to a drop in oil prices, with the result that most of the shore-based stations in southern African closed.

In 1931 the League of Nations produced a Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, adopted by 26 nations.  This banned the catching of all Right Whales, as well as calves, sexually immature whales and pregnant and lactating females of any other species.

Unfortunately the war against whaling is still going on. Even a country like Norway, who targeted especially Minke Whales near Antartica, came to better judgement only recently.  Japan was the only IWC member country to vote against a Southern Ocean Sanctuary for whales and has continued to take up to 440 Minke Whales from Antarctic waters each year for “scientific research”, although the meat is sold in Japan where it fetches high prices as a delicacy.

Since 1969, aerial surveys of cow-calf pairs have been conducted annually and have revealed that the Southern Right Whale population is recovering at the maximum rate biologically possible – 7% per year.  The number of Right Whales in the entire southern hemisphere is now estimated at 7000, while the South African stock comprises some 2000 whales.  However, despite a doubling of the population every ten years, this is still only 10% of the original numbers pre-whaling.