But this is not true of the fin whales for the conditions under which they live in the North Pacific are very similar to those in the North Atlantic; consequently, even if the animals of the two oceans never mingled, they could probably continue to reproduce themselves without material change for an almost indefinite period. But there is strong evidence to show that all the fin whales do travel from one ocean to another by way of Capes Horn and Good Hope and, since the tropic waters of the Equator are not an effective barrier, wander from the borders of the Antarctic far up into the North Pacific and Atlantic, or vice versa.
The sperm whale is also a cosmopolitan wanderer, but the right whales apparently do not cross the Equator which, as Lieutenant Maury remarks, acts to them like a “belt of fire.” The bowhead is found only in the Arctic regions.
The upper jaw of a finback whale, showing the bristles on the inner edges of the baleen plates.
Strangely enough, if whales are driven away from inland waters they seldom return, and others will not take the places of those which have been killed. This has been demonstrated on the American west coast to the considerable financial loss of both the Tyee Company of Alaska and the (former) Pacific Whaling Company of Victoria, British Columbia.
The Tyee Company erected a station on the southern end of Admiralty Island, sixty miles from the open sea, and although when operations were first begun finback and humpback whales were there in hundreds, they were soon all killed and the vessels had to hunt “outside.”
The Pacific Whaling Company spent many thousands of dollars building a station at Nannaimo, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, expecting to capture a sufficient number of whales in the bay and straits to supply their factory. Their hopes were not realized, however, for after two or three seasons’ work there were no more whales to kill and the station had to be moved near the open sea.
It seems to be true that in all parts of the world the blue and humpback whales first leave the feeding grounds and that the finback and sei whales will remain longer than any other, even when persistently hunted.
CHAPTER XV
REDISCOVERING A SUPPOSEDLY EXTINCT WHALE
Half a century ago, on the Pacific coast of America, each year a whale appeared as regularly as the season itself; first in December, traveling steadily southward to the warm California lagoons, and again in May heading northward for the ice-filled waters of the Arctic Ocean. It came close inshore, nosing about among the tentacle-like ropes of kelp and sometimes wallowing in the surf which broke among the rocks.