SPERM WHALES OF THE AZORES 



By Robert Clarke 

 (Plates I, II, text-figs. 1-18) 



INTRODUCTION 



IN the Azores or Western Islands there is a flourishing whale fishery conducted solely for the 

 sperm whale. All the nine islands (except Corvo) engage in whaling, and in recent years between 

 five and seven hundred whales have been killed annually in the Azores (Table 30, p. 283). The 

 whales are hunted from open boats, and I have described in an earlier Discovery Report, Open boat 

 whaling in the Azores (1954a),* the history and existing methods of this remarkable survival from 

 nineteenth-century whaling. That technical account is complementary to the present report on the 

 biology of the whales captured in the Azores. This is mainly based upon the examination of numbers 



40 



39 



31' 



30° 



29° 



28°W 



27° 



26° 



25° 



38 



Corvo 

 







Flores 



WESTERN 

 GROUP 



Graciosa 

 San * 

 Jorqe , — , 



Faya, 9c^ ° 



39 



Tercei ra 



Horta (Porto P/w) 



Pico 

 CENTRAL GROUP 



&CZ3 



San Mique 



Santa Maria ° 



EASTERN 

 GROUP 



40 



38 



31" 



30° 



29" 



28°W 



27° 



26° 



25° 



Fig. 1. The Azores. 



of carcasses at the whaling station of Porto Pirn at Horta on the island of Fayal (Fig. 1). The biological 



work at Horta began when I visited the Azores in 1949, but since that date the station (described on 



p. 343 ff. of the earlier report) has annually provided much additional information which I am most 



happy to acknowledge below. 



Since the publication in 1938 of Matthews' report on the sperm whale the commercial importance 



of the species has grown, and its bionomics, especially in Japan, have received increasing attention. 



In the present study of sperm whales from the North Atlantic field I have therefore attempted, where- 



ever possible, to compare the findings with those from stocks elsewhere rather than make the treatment 



merely parochial. 



* For a short account see Clarke (1953). 



