BKST: LANDED CATCH OF RICHT WHAI.K 



the oil factor and both whalebone factors. This is 

 accompanied by a marked increase in the ratio of 

 whalebone to whale oil imported, to a peak of 49.6 

 lb to a barrel of oil from 1895 to 1899 (Table 2). It 

 is assumed that over this period whalebone was 

 collected in preference to whale oil, as described 

 by Ross (1974) for bowhead whales: 



. . . with a dramatic rise in the price of whalebone the 

 oil diminished to less than 20'^^ of the value of a whale 

 after 1890 .... As a result whaling masters intensified 

 the search for bone; . . . the crews simply stripped away 

 the baleen, which was readily transportable, and left 

 the rest of the carcass, including the bulky blubber, to 

 rot. Oil returns, therefore, do not accurately reflect the 

 number of whales killed in the late decades of whaling. 



It is apparent that after 1880, whalebone produc- 

 tion would be a more accurate measure of the 

 total landed catch. 



The economic basis for these shifts in interest is 

 clearly shown by the average prices of whale oil 

 and whalebone imported into the United States 

 each year from 1804 to 1909 (Starbuck 1878: 

 Hegarty 1959). These have been used to calculate 

 the relative contribution of whalebone to the total 

 value of a right whale, assuming a ratio at maxi- 

 mum utilization of 10 lb of bone to a barrel 

 ( = 31.5 gal) of oil per whale (Table 3). Whalebone 

 made a relatively minor contribution to the value 

 of a whale (<20'7f) up to 1839, ranged from 20 to 



Table 3. — Prices paid for whale products imported into the United 

 States and the relative value of whalebone from a nght whale. 



34% between 1840 and 1874, but increased 

 rapidly in value thereafter to a peak of 80.8% in 

 1905-09. 



To conclude, oil production is considered the 

 more accurate measure of the landed catch from 

 1804 to 1879, but whalebone production there- 

 after. With the high value of whalebone after 

 1879 (comprising more than half the total value 

 of the whale), it is likely that it would be utilized 

 whenever possible. Hence scaling factor B would 

 be the more appropriate to use. 



Using these factors, the total landed catch from 

 the data tabulated by Townsend (1935) for Amer- 

 ican vessels only between 1804 and 1909 is esti- 

 mated as 125,883 whales, comprising 30,313 bow- 

 head, 74,693 right, 18,212 humpback, and 2,665 

 gray whales (Table 4). Of the right whales 

 caught, 182 (0.2%) were taken in the North At- 

 lantic, 15,374 (20.6%) in the North Pacific, 32,191 

 (43.1%) in the South Atlantic, 14,699 (19.7%) in 

 the South Pacific, and 12,247 (16.4%) in the In- 

 dian Ocean. 



ESTIMATES BASED ON CATCH PER 

 VOYAGE 



The use of production figures to estimate 

 catches masks certain fundamental problems. Ac- 

 cording to R. C. Kugler (in lift. 6 March 1985), 

 neither Starbuck nor Hegarty apparently made 

 much effort to report a vessel's total take of oil. 

 They relied primarily on newspapers, especially 

 the Whalemen's Shipping List after it began pub- 

 lication in 1843. These reports, however, seldom 

 gave more than the amount of oil on board at the 

 time of the vessel's arrival. Only sporadically and 

 inconsistently was shipped oil added in. This fac- 

 tor would mean that the mean oil yields per whale 

 calculated here would be underestimated, and the 

 total number of whales landed correspondingly 

 overestimated. Nevertheless, the mean oil yields 

 derived in this paper agreed reasonably well with 

 contemporary opinion on how much a particular 

 species should yield. 



A further problem with the use of whale oil 

 production is that the term "whale oil" was used 

 to designate not only that from right and other 

 species of whalebone whale, but also elephant 

 seal and walrus oil. At certain periods the 

 amounts landed of the latter were not negligible 

 (Bockstoce and Botkin 1982; Busch 1985; Kugler 

 in lift. 6 March 1985). However, it is not clear how 

 much and in which direction this factor would 

 affect the present analysis, depending on whether 



413 



