WHALE HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA 



exhaustible, yet the concentrated activity of the last 

 ten years has caused alarming inroads into the great 

 herds which fed along the edge of the Antarctic 

 Circle. 



On South Georgia alone there are at the present 

 time eight stations with headquarters in Norway, 

 Great Britain, and Argentina, and the South Shet- 

 lands, Falkland, South Orkney, and Kerguelen Islands 

 are the homes of many floating factories and perma- 

 nent stations. 



It is true that because of its remoteness the cost 

 of whaling operations in the far south is very heavy 

 and that the slaughter will cease automatically when 

 the profits are no longer commensurate with the in- 

 vestment, but owing to the extraordinary concentra- 

 tion of whales on these feeding grounds, before that 

 time comes the ravages will have been so great that 

 probably the animals can never again attain a firm 

 hold upon life. 



The excessive slaughter in the South Atlantic has a 

 direct effect upon the industry in other parts of the 

 world, for it is very probable that the fin whales go 

 northward from the Antarctic waters into both the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 



In Japan it will be a national catastrophe when 

 whaling ceases, because the diet of the ordinary na- 

 tive would consist of little besides rice, fish, and vege- 

 tables were it not for the thousands of tons of whale 

 meat which are distributed fresh or canned to almost 

 the entire Empire, and which furnish a healthful 

 and palatable food at a low cost. 



34 



