42 MACQUAIilE ISLAND ANP ITS FUTURE, 



Referring: to whaling, Dr. Harmer says(2) ; "In every 

 "case the history of the operations has been identical, the 

 "period of prosperity with which they opened having been 

 "succeeded by a notable fall in the numbers caught, so that 

 "in most of the localities where whaling was once profitable 

 "the industry has become a thing of the past." 



In the Arctic Regions where the Right Whale has been 

 hunted for a very long period, its numbers have now reached 

 a vanishing point. 



Antarctic whaling began in earnest in the year 1904, 

 when the vast schools of finner whales were attacked by 

 modern methods, with bases at the island of South Georgia 

 and at the South Shetland Islands. Dr. Harmer(3) says: 

 "At both these localities whaling has been extraordinarily 

 "successful, and in a single year the total catch of both 

 "together has exceeded 10,000 whales; a number which 

 "should be contrasted with 1,437 Greenland whales captured 

 "in 1814, a year described by Scoresby as a specially good 

 "one." 



But already the whales are becoming scarcer in those 

 seas, which diminution would be the more accented but for 

 certain restrictions imposed by the administration. The 



falling off is specially noticeable in the case of the Humpback 

 whale, which constituted 90 per cent, of the catch in the 

 years 1910-12, but had diminished to less than 10 per cent, 

 in the season 1916-17. 



In the case of the whales, which animals live their entire 

 lives in the sea, there is far less chance of extermination 

 than in the case of the seals and penguins, which spend a 

 part of the year, the breeding period, ashore; this is especi- 

 ally so with the Antarctic life which has never been hunted 

 by man or predatory land mammals, and is consequently an 

 easy prey. 



It would he an easy matter, liy the exercise of unc:m- 

 trolled slaughter over a period of several years, to wipe out 

 the Sea-elephant and pi'nguin life in Macquarie Island. 

 Once gone, it would be practically impossible to regenerate 

 the io.st fauna, and the feasible project of perpetual economic 

 exploitation, whilst at the same time maintaining their 

 numbers, would be gone for ever. With the extinction of 

 the seals and penguins goes the economic future of the 

 i.Mland. 



(2) .Si-u-nlihr l»< \«-|(.pmciit of Ihr Knlklnnd iHlnnclH nnd Dppcn- 

 (IpncipH, i,y Dr. .S. K. Hnrrm-r. Jour. Ccoif.. Vol. LVI. (1920), p. 61. 



CI) I Intl. p l\>. 



