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

The Whaling Industry

The St Abb’s Whaling Limited, of which the writer was appointed chairman, found whales at the Seychelles in great numbers in 1913, and we got permission from the Government there to start an up-to-date whaling station with licences for two whaling steamers, which we chartered and had sent out to us from Norway.

Our capital was about £20,000, and our station and factory was nearly completed, and we were catching numbers of sperm and some “finner” whales, when war broke out. Our supply of coals was cut off; barrels could not be obtained for oil; sacks could not be got for the whale guano (which is made from bones and whale meat); and freight completely failed us owing to the congestion caused by war material on the various lines. We could neither get supplies nor send away our products to Durban and other ports, except in some small consignments on our Diesel motor tank whaler, the St Ebba, which finally we were obliged to run on sperm oil at about £28 per ton!

We could not “stop down” owing to contracts; and the difficulty of raising more capital under war conditions finally forced us to voluntary liquidation.

This promising industry, therefore, had to be stopped in the meantime, and it occurs to us that as one of the “Empire’s resources” the Government could very easily put it into working order again, with great profit and for the benefit of the Islands, Africa and the Old Country. For we found immense numbers of sperm and finner whales round the Seychelles, and even before getting into our stride we had secured one hundred and forty whales and shipped home two thousand three hundred barrels of oil, besides what was lost before the station factory was completed and what we were obliged to use locally for our Diesel motor in place of common solar oil. Six barrels of whale oil go to the ton.

With the experience before them of the vast revenues from whaling at South Georgia and South Shetlands going almost entirely to Norway, our Government has, we think, wisely restricted the granting of whaling licences at the Seychelles to British concerns. Our company rented land for our station, built the factories and has some years’ lease to run, and the best season for fishing begins about 1st of May.

The vast whaling industry in the Falkland Island Dependencies—the South Georgia and South Shetlands—was started as a result of the information that Dr W. S. Bruce and the writer brought back from there in regard to the immense number of finner whales we had seen there in our Antarctic voyage of 1892-1893 to the Antarctic and Weddell Sea; and in one of the first of the Norwegian companies, which is still successful to-day, the writer took a considerable interest at its start. This company is to-day paying a dividend of over 150 per cent. But for the war I consider the Seychelles whaling should have paid handsomely now.

In regard to this great modern whaling industry in the sub-Antarctic seas we may here say that, previously to the Norwegians starting it, Dr Bruce and the writer held meetings in Edinburgh and urged the leading business men, merchants and shipping people to take it up. We foretold the fortunes that were to be made, but they did not rise. A little later the Norwegian who we hoped to have as manager for the first whaling station in South Georgia, Captain Larsen, succeeded in raising capital in Argentina, and I am told began with a modest 70 per cent. profit in the first year. Norwegian companies quickly followed his lead and utilised our Empire’s resources for Norway!