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Save the whales

The 'Save the Whales' movement changed everything after the whaling period. In this article we look at what happened and how it continues today.
A black and white photo of protesters displaying a large protest billboard on the side of a building. It bears a rainbow, the  Greenpeace name and logo and the caption “Stop bloody “scientific” whaling”.
© The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23254521

In the twentieth century, whaling became more industrialised and deadly. But during the 1970s, Aotearoa New Zealand’s attitude to whaling changed – from general support to active opposition. Now, whale watching is one of New Zealand’s most lucrative tourist enterprises, and former whalers take an active role in their conservation.

Extinction on the horizon?

Even as late as the 1950s, New Zealanders welcomed whaling fleets to their ports. Their attitude began to change with the collapse of the small shore-based whaling industry in the country in 1964 – a direct result of overfishing by foreign fleets in the previous decade. People were shocked by the near-total disappearance of humpback whales that normally migrated to New Zealand shores.

In the 1996 Spectrum audio documentary The Last of the Whale Hunters, some of the very last Aotearoa New Zealand whaling gunners, Charlie Heberley and his son Joe, reflected on what they saw in the 50s and 60s, when they witnessed the populations plummet:

We were devastated. As time wore on, we knew that whaling was going to become history.. There was a lot of devastated whalers. We knew that the Japanese and Russians had got in and slaughtered the pod of whales that were feeding the New Zealand coast.
The Japanese and the Russians, they weren’t satisfied in slaughtering them down the Antarctic, they started coming up and taking them on the New Zealand coast.
We got blamed here in New Zealand for killing the whales out. Well let me give you an example. In 1960 was the record number of whales taken in New Zealand. That year Cook Strait whalers took 226 whales in the season.
Well that same season, the Japanese and the Russians took 42,000 whales down the Antarctic. And that’s only what they reported. By the experience we had in some of their reporting, there was a lot more than that caught. [Their factory ships] could process 70 whales in 24 hours.

The beginning of protections

After signing the 1931 League of Nations International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, Aotearoa New Zealand began enacting its own regulations around whaling with the Whaling Industry Act 1935.
Baleen whales were protected with a closed season through the warmer months (when they were more likely to be found in Aotearoa New Zealand waters) from 1949. More specific and full protections were eventually added for humpback and sperm whales in 1961. By this point, the industry had all but collapsed already due to the rarity of the whales.

Consciousness raised

The growth of the ‘green’ movement in the 1970s coincided with the recognition of whales as intelligent and sophisticated creatures. People were also shocked by graphic and gruesome footage of whales being slaughtered which was released around this time.
A poster featuring a large drawing of a whale in blue, surrounded by blue and white swirls. Arching above the whale is "stop the slaughter". Down the side it reads "a whale is killed every 20 minutes. They need your help". In small text at the bottom is "origination donated by Offset Plates N.Z. Ltd. Printing donated by Whitcoulls Ltd". Poster, ‘Stop the Slaughter’, publisher unknown, early 1970s, New Zealand. Gift of the Estate of Ron and Carmen Smith, 2015. Te Papa (GH024554)

The Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978

The 1978 Marine Mammals Protection Bill made all hunting of whales in Aotearoa New Zealand illegal, as it remains today. All marine mammals within New Zealand’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone are protected.

The International Whaling Commission

Since 1963 the International Whaling Commission has forbidden the taking of blue whales. With about 16,000 blue pygmy whales in the world’s seas today, they would appear to be making something of a comeback.
Aotearoa New Zealand was a founding member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1946, but shortly after the IWC forbade the taking of blue whales, ceased whaling completely and left the commission four years later in 1968. Amidst the birth of the ‘Save the Whales’ movement in 1974, Aotearoa New Zealand rejoined – not as a whaling nation, but as a conservationist country. A position it has strengthened in the years since. It is now one of the most staunchly conservationist countries in the Commission.
In 1982, the Commission voted for a moratorium on commercial whaling which has now been in place since 1986. Norway (and later Iceland) objected at the vote so remain unbound by the moratorium, and there was also continued pressure from Japan to resume commercial whaling. The IWC also established the Indian Ocean Sanctuary in 1979, and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in 1994; enshrining nearly a third of the world’s oceans as whale sanctuaries.

Whaling today

Six baleen whales laying on the deck of a large modern ship. Whales caught in the Southern Ocean by a Japanese whaling ship, witnessed by Greenpeace, 21 December 2005. Greenpeace, all rights reserved
Controversially, Japan continued whaling activity in Antarctic waters within the IWC’s ‘scientific whaling’ provision. The meat from whales killed for research was sold as food, and many experts questioned if more were taken than necessary. This activity was consistently protested amid suspicion that its factory ships were functioning in a commercial capacity under the guise of research.
A small inflatable boat with a flag attached is alongside a large ship in the middle of hauling a whale up by its tail. The hard-hatted men on the large ship are shooting a fire hose down at the three in the inflatable. Greenpeace try to hinder the transfer of minke whales to a Japanese factory ship, Southern Ocean, 6 January, 2006. Photograph by Kate Davison, reproduced courtesy of Greenpeace New Zealand
According to the Department of Conservation:
Whale meat is one of the most expensive foods in the world. High-quality minke whale tail meat reportedly sells in Tokyo for about NZ $350 per kilo.

Japan left the IWC in 2019, and while that means the whales in the Antarctic and South Pacific are now free of Japanese whalers, those in their own territorial waters are once again the basis of a commercial industry.

Short red cans with Japanese characters written on them in gold and white are stacked atop each other at a market of some sort. Canned whale meat in Japan, by halfrain via Flickr CC BY SA 2.0

Official position

From 1991, opposition to whaling became official – the promotion of a global ban on commercial whaling entered New Zealand Government policy. After a 200-year association with whaling, New Zealand is now a ‘committed conservation country’ and is recognised as a world leader in marine mammal protection.

Yesterday’s whalers today

Four old men sit in a row inside a structure made of tarpaulin. The all wear woolly hats in multiple colours and gaze outward through binoculars. Ex-whalers looking for whales as part of a conservation survey in the Cook Strait, 2004. Photograph by Simon Childerhouse, reproduced courtesy of Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai

Today, the Department of Conservation has recruited some former whalers to track humpback whales for a different purpose; to monitor their numbers as part of an annual survey. For two weeks at the end of June (the peak of the humpback whales’ migration through Cook Strait), a handful of ex-whalers set up a canvas tent high on a hillside on Arapawa Island and spend whole days, from sun-up to sun-down, peering through their binoculars for the telltale spout from a blowhole. Amid winter storms and wild seas, it is a challenge, but one they embrace for its camaraderie and the chance to contribute to the conservation of these ocean giants.

When they spot one with certainty (false alarms are paid for with a penalty of whiskey for the group), they radio to DOC staff on a nearby patrolling ecotourism boat. The DOC team take off after the animal to gather photographs and DNA in order to identify the individuals, and alongside their colleagues across the South Pacific, piece together the route of their annual migrations. Numbers remain even lower than those seen around the 1960 collapse.

Other threats

Though the whaling industry is now much smaller than it was, many other threats from humans remain. Chiefly these are boat strikes when whales enter increasingly busy shipping lanes, drowning after being caught in fishing lines or nets, ingestion of pollution or plastic waste, and climate change altering their ancestral breeding and feeding grounds. We’ll look at those more closely next week.

In the next step we’ll wrap up the week, and reflect on everything we’ve covered about whaling and its cultural, social, economic, and conservation implications.

Further Resources

Whaling, the Department of Conservation

Whale Hunting, New Zealand Geographic

Japan’s scientific whaling ruse is over, Foreign Policy Magazine

Big Fish: A Brief History of Whaling, National Geographic

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The Significance of Whales to Aotearoa New Zealand

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