NEW ZEALAND WHALING 247 



the seas around Australia and New Zealand. Risting (1922) gives some account of 

 these ventures, all of which met with disastrous failure. 



The A/S 'Laboremus', in the autumn of 191 1, sent the sealer 'Mimosa', fitted out 

 as a floating factory, with a whale-catcher, to explore the coast of Tasmania. She failed 

 to find whales around Tasmania and explored the New Zealand seas without any 

 success. The "New Zealand Whaling Company" of Larvik, under the same manage- 

 ment as the "West Australian Whaling Company ", sent the factory ship ' Rakiura ' and 

 four whale boats to New Zealand in March 1912. The ship was for a time stationed 

 in the Bay of Islands, and Lillie (1915) records its presence there during the months 

 July to October, 19 12, when he visited the Whangamumu whaling station. Lillie 

 mentions also the sailing ship ' Prince George ' with which the company was apparently 

 also working in the Bay of Islands at that time. The ' Rakiura ' worked only for one 

 season and thoroughly explored the seas around New Zealand from the Antarctic to 

 the Kermadec Islands in the north and Campbell Island in the east. No success was 

 met with, however, and the Company abandoned the area and obtained whaling rights 

 on the west coast of Australia, becoming the " Fremantle Whaling Company ". Another 

 expedition also met with failure — that of the A/S 'Australia', which fitted out a ship, 

 the 'Loch Tay', and two whale boats, to explore the eastern coast of Australia. After 

 extensive voyages over the whole area, southward to New Zealand and eastward to 

 Campbell Island, the expedition went to Blufl^, in the South Island of New Zealand, 

 and for a short time, from January to April 1913, carried on a small Sperm-whale 

 fishery. 



These failures were made only a little less disastrous by the discovery of pieces of 

 ambergris on one or two occasions. They demonstrated beyond question that the 

 number of whales to be found in Australasian waters is much too small for large-scale 

 undertakings, and no further attempts have been made to exploit the region on these lines. 



MODERN WHALING IN NEW ZEALAND 

 There are at present two whaling stations operating on a small scale in New Zealand. 

 The older of these two stations is situated at Whangamumu, Bay of Islands, and the 

 younger in Tory Channel, Queen Charlotte Sound, at the northern end of the South 

 Island. In the bay whaling days there were several shore stations in the Tory Channel 

 near the site of the modern one. 



The Whangamumu station was established by Mr H. F. Cook in 1890, and is still 

 managed and part-owned by him. Mr Cook shipped to New Bedford and back in one 

 of the last American Sperm- whaHng ships which visited New Zealand before he started 

 his own whaling factory. The station was not operating during the winter of 1932 so 

 that no visit was made to it, but something of the methods employed there was learnt 

 from a conversation with Mr Cook in Auckland. D. G. Lillie, in the winters of 191 1 

 and 1912, visited the Whangamumu station and the factory ship 'Rakiura' when she 

 was lying in the Bay of Islands. He made a study (Lillie, 1915) of the Humpbacks 

 brought in during the time he was at Whangamumu, and his account is confirmed in 



