WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 25 



Though so large, these whales are not nearly so valuable as 

 the Greenland whale ; still their numbers make up for their 

 comparatively small value. 1 



In the last five or six years these finner whales, formerly 

 unattacked by man, have been hunted all round the world. 

 In 1911 there were one hundred and twenty modern steam- 

 whalers working north of the Equator, and in the Southern 

 Hemisphere there were eighty-six. The total value of the 

 catch for the year was estimated at two and three quarter 

 million sterling. 



These whales are rapidly becoming more shy and wary, still 

 the catches increase and the value of oil goes up. The more 

 unsophisticated whales in unfished oceans will have soon to 

 be hunted. There is not the least fear of whales ever being 

 exterminated, for long before that could happen, owing to 



reduced numbers and their increased shyness, hunting them 

 will not pay the great cost incurred. So there will some day 

 be a world- wide close season just as has happened in the 

 case of the Greenland whale, which is now enjoying a close 

 season and is increasing in numbers in the Arctic seas. 



Captain T. Robertson of the Scotia in 1911, though he 

 came home with a " clean ship," saw over forty of the 

 Mysticeti east of Greenland, but could not get near them, for 

 they kept warily far in amongst the ice floes. 



The sperm whale is also recovering in numbers. I have 

 seen them in great numbers only last year in warm southern 

 waters, where twenty years ago they had become very 

 scarce. 



We must mention here another whale that was actually 

 supposed to be extinct. This is the Biscayensis, commonly 



1 Values of whales and their products constantly change. To-day finner 

 whales' oil is becoming almost as valuable as sperm oil. 



