214 DESCRIPTION OF IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



feet). Males are fairly common off California all year; females rarely are 

 encountered from April to September. It feeds on squids, skates, sharks, 

 and bottom fishes. 



Giant bottlenose whale (Berardius hairdi), length to 11 meters (37 feet), 

 frequently occurs off the California coast from June to October. It is rarely 

 taken because of its relatively small size. 



Hunting. The five catcher boats used by the two California whaling 

 stations are diesel-powered, 31 to 41 meters long, with a maximum speed 

 of 18 to 22 km per hour. They carry a crew of four to six men — captain, 

 gunner, engineer, cook, and deckhands. 



Mounted on a platform above the bow is a harpoon gun with a bore 

 diameter of 90 mm, which fires a harpoon 1.85 meters long, weighing 

 about 75 kg. The head of the harpoon consists of an explosive grenade. 

 This is triggered by a time fuse which is activated when the harpoon 

 head penetrates the body of the whale. The harpoon is attached to about 

 100 meters of polypropylene or nylon line, the ^'foregoer," which is coiled 

 in front of the gun. This is followed by about 1000 meters of steel cable 

 which runs through a block-and-tackle shock absorber to a winch. 



When a whale is killed it is inflated with air so that it will float. It is 

 secured to the gunwales by a heavy chain which is passed around its tail 

 immediately anterior to the flukes and is towed back to the station. As 

 the heavy blubber layer prevents loss of body heat, a whale must be 

 processed within about 20 hours after death to avoid spoilage of the meat. 



Processing. At the whaling station, a whale is hauled up a slipway onto 

 the flensing deck by a heavy winch. 



The flensers, with the aid of long-handled, curve-bladed flensing knives 

 and a pair of smaller winches, remove in two strips the blubber from the 

 belly and from the side which is uppermost, in the same manner that a 

 banana is peeled. Next they strip the loin (epaxial muscles) from that side 

 and finally remove the lower jaw and one baleen row. The carcass is then 

 rolled over, and the blubber (in one strip), loin, and baleen are removed 

 from the other side. Next the head is removed, the rib cage and abdominal 

 wall is stripped from the upper side, and the viscera are pulled out. Finally 

 the inner loins (hypaxial muscles) on either side are removed, and the 

 other side of the rib cage is severed from the backbone. 



The meat, as soon as it is removed from the carcass, is trimmed of con- 

 nective tissue, tendons, and excess fat and is cut into 5 to 10 kg chunks. 

 These are placed in large tanks of chilled salt water for cooling. After 

 several hours, the tanks are drained and the meat is removed. The meat 

 is then ground and packed in bags of 23.7 kg (50 pound) capacity. Each 

 bag is laid in a wire tray on a rack, which is then placed in the freezer. 



The bones, after removal of usable meat, are sawed into manageable 



