History of Whaling

Makah Native American Tribe

Native American Tribes like the Makah, fed their entire families by hunting whales.  The Makah prepared for these hunts using an elaborate ritual to spiritually prepare themselves for the hunt.  Then they trudged out onto the ice and waited for migrating humpback or gray whales.  When the whale was close enough, they throw their harpoons into the great animal.  A rope with inflated seal bladders kept the whales from diving and after the animal died, they would dive into the freezing water and sew its mouth shut, to prevent air from escaping.  The Makah butchered the gray whales, using them for only for oil and humpbacks for food.

European and American Whaling

While the native tribes hunted whales for food and oil, the Europeans and Americans turned whale hunting into an industry.  During the 19th century, whales were slaughtered by the thousands for their oil, flexible baleen and blubber.  Whale oil was used for heating oil and industrial lubricant, which was derived from the boiling the blubber.  The baleen, which is the flexible filter that whales use to sift food from large, mouthfuls of water, was used where plastics are used today.  Whales couldn’t reproduce fast enough to keep their numbers from dwindling dangerously low.

Whaling is Banned

In 1946, the International Whaling Commission was created to conserve and manage global whale populations.  This commission created a set of policies in 1975 to manage all of the great whales in order to keep healthy, harvestable numbers on the planet.  In 1982 they convened and implemented a “pause” in commercial whaling, effective beginning in 1986 in order to figure obtain the necessary data to manage the overall whaling population.  International law allows native people to hunt a certain number of whales per year for food and permits are granted to scientists in the name of scientific research.

Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska

The native Inupiat tribes of northern Alaska, under International Whaling Commissions guidelines, are allowed to kill twenty-two whales a year in order to feed their families.  A single whale will feed a family for a year.  The natives hunt bowhead whales, which migrate north to Arctic waters to spend the summer months.  After the ice breaks, they pitch tents on the frozen Arctic Ocean, ten feet from open water, waiting for the whales to arrive.  When a whale is sighted, they fire harpoons into the whale fired and dozens of hunters haul the whale up on the ice using a block and tackle pulley system.  This double pulley system allows a dozen or so humans to drag a forty-ton whale onto solid ice.

Modern Whale Hunting

Whaling still exists in the modern world, under the guise of scientific study and through Black Market Operations.  Modern ships are equipped with sonar to find and track the whales and harpoons with explosive grenades at the end, which, when fired from an explosive cannon, gouges a hole into the whale, causing the grenade to explode.  This explosion damages any internal organs that it is in contact with, but does not kill the whale immediately.  The animal slowly dies over several hours. 

References

The History of the Makah Whale Hunt

http://www.alamut.com/subj/the_other/misc/makahWhaling.html

Whale Hunting – Get the Facts!

http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/395903

Ancient Respect – Modern Slaughter

http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-whaling-inuit.htm

The Whale Hunt – Inupiat Tribe, Barrow, Alaska

http://thewhalehunt.org/statement.html

International Whaling Commission – Information

http://www.iwcoffice.org/commission/iwcmain.htm#history