32 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



was sold by the King of Tydore to the Dutch East India Company 

 for 11,000 thaler s, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was reported to 

 have offered 50,000 crowns for it; an alleged 1 32-pound lump in 1782 

 brought only 500; in 1791, 362 pounds from one whale was sold for 

 IQS. 6d an ounce, though the prevailing price at the time was 253.; 

 in 1858 a 6oo-pound lot which the owners refused to divide was finally 

 sold for $10,500; in 1866, 150 pounds from one whale sold for 

 $10,000 in gold; in 1878 an 1 8-pound lot brought $150 a pound, a 

 1 32 y^ -pound lot brought $23,231, and at about the same time 125 

 pounds sold for $20,000 and 100 pounds for $17,500; in 1882, 136 

 pounds sold for $14,000; 1891, 162 pounds for $10,000; 1894, 109 

 pounds for $26,000. 29 



Notwithstanding the general slaughter of whales and the fact that 

 certain valuable species have become rare, because of unrestricted 

 hunting by destructive and wasteful methods, some other species are 

 still fairly common in certain localities, though the whole industry is 

 probably doomed unless radical conservation measures are soon 

 adopted and enforced, perhaps by concerted international action. A 

 Council for the Conservation of Whales has been organized by the 

 American Society of Mammalogists. On the west coast of Mexico 

 over 800 whales were taken in six months in 1924-1925, mostly hump- 

 backs and sperms (no grays), weighing from 35 to 100 tons and worth 

 from $400 to $3,000 each. 30 One whaling company in 1918 took 999 

 whales on the coasts of Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. 31 

 The total amount invested in the business and the annual product is 

 still large and the methods of hunting and handling the catch and 

 utilizing the by-products have been much improved. It was reported 

 that in Alaska alone in 1914 the investment in the whaling industry 

 was $1,456,649, with a product that year worth $291,099.^ Accord- 

 ing to United Press dispatches, the fleet of whaling vessels and float- 

 ing refineries returning from the South Seas in 1930 brought the 

 largest cargoes of sperm oil and by-products ever loaded, obtained 

 from whales which were located and reported by wireless-equipped air- 

 planes and killed by electric harpoons. One vessel brought 62,000 bar- 

 rels of oil and another brought 37,000 barrels. 



29 Stevenson, Kept. U. S. Comm. Fish, etc., for 1902, pp. 248-252. Prince, The Whal- 

 ing industry and the Cetacea of Canada, Special Reports, Gov. Ptg. Office, Ottawa, 

 1906. Clark, The whale fishery, in Fisheries and Fishing Industries of U. S., 1887, 

 Sec. v, Vol. 2, pp. 72, 212. 



30 California Fish and Game, xi, 79, 1925. 



31 California Fish and Game, v, 80, 1919. 



32 Bower and Aller, Kept. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1914, App. x, pp. 58-64. 



