Grytviken Whaling Station, South Georgia
Well it’s a rough-tough life,
full of toil and strife;
we whalers undergo.
And we don’t give a damn,
when the storm is done;
how hard the wind did blow!
-Traditional whaler's shanty
Now there is absolutely no way that I am going to try and convince you that it is a rough-tough life here aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. Far from it, we enjoy the absolute best of all things possible, a far cry from the life of a whaler in these waters some 100 years ago. But this afternoon we got a taste of just what the life of a 20th century whaler might have been like when we dropped anchor in front of Grytviken whaling station on South Georgia.
This Norwegian whaling station opened for business in the year 1904, at the very beginning of the modern era of whaling. The amount of whales taken and processed through 1965 (when the station closed) would make the Yankee-era whalers balk by the sheer magnitude. These were absolutely the richest whaling waters anywhere in the world, and these whalers knew just how to exploit those riches in the most efficient manner possibly.
Exploding harpoons fired by steam-powered ships that could chase down and kill the fastest of the big whales with ease. Processing shore stations that could render those whales quickly and efficiently, store the oil, make bone meal, and work in all kinds of weather. Their success must have gone even beyond their own wildest dreams when you consider the numbers of animals taken from the Southern Ocean in the 20th century. As many as 300,000 blue whales were killed. Over 700,000 fin whales and as many as 200,000 humpback whales. In total estimates are as high as 1.4 million whales killed and processed in these waters in that timeframe... staggering!
This afternoon walking through what has become the ghost town of Grytviken my thoughts turn toward the future. Have we learned that we cannot exploit any living creature to such an extent without severe consequence? Blue, fin, and humpback whale numbers today are still only single-digit percentages of their population estimates prior to whaling. These stocks are slowly making a comeback in a world that currently values the living whales themselves to the oil and bone meal products we can make of them. The key word here is slowly.
Given history’s propensity to repeat itself, can we trust that this population growth will continue? Will places like Grytviken remain ghost towns, monuments to remind us of choices we as a society made in the past that we do not choose now? Can we continue to protect whales from slaughter on a worldwide basis? I certainly hope so.
Don’t you?
Well it’s a rough-tough life,
full of toil and strife;
we whalers undergo.
And we don’t give a damn,
when the storm is done;
how hard the wind did blow!
-Traditional whaler's shanty
Now there is absolutely no way that I am going to try and convince you that it is a rough-tough life here aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. Far from it, we enjoy the absolute best of all things possible, a far cry from the life of a whaler in these waters some 100 years ago. But this afternoon we got a taste of just what the life of a 20th century whaler might have been like when we dropped anchor in front of Grytviken whaling station on South Georgia.
This Norwegian whaling station opened for business in the year 1904, at the very beginning of the modern era of whaling. The amount of whales taken and processed through 1965 (when the station closed) would make the Yankee-era whalers balk by the sheer magnitude. These were absolutely the richest whaling waters anywhere in the world, and these whalers knew just how to exploit those riches in the most efficient manner possibly.
Exploding harpoons fired by steam-powered ships that could chase down and kill the fastest of the big whales with ease. Processing shore stations that could render those whales quickly and efficiently, store the oil, make bone meal, and work in all kinds of weather. Their success must have gone even beyond their own wildest dreams when you consider the numbers of animals taken from the Southern Ocean in the 20th century. As many as 300,000 blue whales were killed. Over 700,000 fin whales and as many as 200,000 humpback whales. In total estimates are as high as 1.4 million whales killed and processed in these waters in that timeframe... staggering!
This afternoon walking through what has become the ghost town of Grytviken my thoughts turn toward the future. Have we learned that we cannot exploit any living creature to such an extent without severe consequence? Blue, fin, and humpback whale numbers today are still only single-digit percentages of their population estimates prior to whaling. These stocks are slowly making a comeback in a world that currently values the living whales themselves to the oil and bone meal products we can make of them. The key word here is slowly.
Given history’s propensity to repeat itself, can we trust that this population growth will continue? Will places like Grytviken remain ghost towns, monuments to remind us of choices we as a society made in the past that we do not choose now? Can we continue to protect whales from slaughter on a worldwide basis? I certainly hope so.
Don’t you?
