Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting / A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the Arctic regions

by W. G. Burn Murdoch

Commercial Aspect and Method of Modern Whaling

Some of these companies work with shore factories, others with both shore factories and large floating factories on board steamers of up to seven thousand tons burden, and each company hunts the whales with, on an average, three to four small steamers, which harpoon the whales within a radius of eighty or ninety miles and tow them in to the shore factories, or the floating factory which is at anchor in some sheltered bay. The bodies are rapidly cut up at a fully equipped land station, and both the blubber and carcass are entirely utilised. At a floating station the bodies, as a rule, are cast adrift.