Whaling

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Whaling is the hunt for whales, mostly from ships that have been called whalers. Whale meat was eaten, for example as grindadráp in the Faroe Islands. In the early days, the main focus was on the extraction of Tran, which served as a fuel and industrial raw material.

Industrial whaling caused the populations of large whales to shrink dramatically by the late 1980s. Many species were or are threatened with extinction.

Whales are considered particularly intelligent animals because of their large brains and complex social behavior. Against this background, whaling is internationally controversial. Today it is only operated by a few countries.

Numerous countries have now joined the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, an international treaty initiated in 1946. Germany joined in 1982.

History

The hunt for whales reached its peak between 1860 and 1986 – between 1945 and the end of the 1970s, the number of animals killed per year was highest (see chart). In this number, the whale population has been reduced so much that the effects on the entire marine ecosystem can still be demonstrated. Hunting not only reduced the population of whales by 90 to 95 percent, but also the availability of whale towers and walkot, which serve as a food basis for numerous species, decreased rapidly.

Prehistory
Rock drawings and bone finds in the south of the Korean Peninsula Bangu-Dae (near Ulsan) show that whales were hunted 7000 years ago. An excavation on the Chukchi Peninsula found a 3,000-year-old piece of walrus ivory depicting a whale hunt, as well as the remains of several whales and stone blades that may have been used to kill the animals.

Cave paintings in Scandinavia show a millennia-old practice of whaling in Europe.

The Eskimos in the northern polar region also traditionally hunt whales, for example with spears thrown from kayaks.

Ancient
Whale bones found in Roman settlements on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and in other Mediterranean regions show that whales were used here 2000 years ago. These were mainly the North Caper and the now extinct Atlantic grey whale, which probably swam into the Mediterranean Sea for calving. Bones of pilot whale, fin whale, sperm whale and Cuvier beak whale were also found.

The Middle Ages

During the Viking Age, it was common to kill and exploit stranded or injured animals. The Vikings drove whales with boats and harpoons into shallow water to kill them there. All parts were used; the meat was dried or preserved by smoking, the oil was cooked into fuel and lamp oil and ropes were turned from the skin. Some bones became objects of use such as sc