Why Do People Hunt Whales?

Everyone has heard the classic story of Moby Dick, but not everyone has heard the story behind the story. For those who don’t know anything about Moby Dick, a group of people go whaling to get revenge on a very large whale named Moby Dick. The story makes the whale seem like the antagonist because in that time whaling was socially acceptable. Since November 14th, 1851, times have changed. The practice of whaling has caused economic and technological advancements to occur, whales to become endangered, and groups to start conservationist movements. One effect of whaling is the economic advancement that people have made from sold whale parts. One of the major reasons why people hunt whales is because different parts of the whale can be sold for

The first advancement was that bigger ships were built in order to catch whales further offshore. According to Juli Berwald of the UXL Encyclopedia of water science, whalers started to form whaling parties off of Cape Cod in Massachusetts and near Long Island, New York as early as 1672. Eventually, whales in the more shallow regions of water declined. As the number of whales near shore diminished, whalers were forced to adapt by building bigger ships called Sloops (331). During the 20th century, additional advancements were made, which includes the grenade-tipped harpoon. This advancement allowed bigger whales such as blue whales to begin being hunted by whalers. A number of other advancements were also made such as the use of sonar, spotter planes, cannons, and steam-powered ships (“Whales and Whaling” 1947). All of these technological advancements had a massive impact on the whaling

In the early history of whaling (before 1900), whaling efforts were focused on Right, Bowhead, and Atlantic Gray Whales. The Right and Bowhead Whales became severely endangered during that time period, while the Atlantic Gray Whale even became extinct (“Whales and Whaling” 1948). As stated above, when the grenade-tipped harpoon was invented in 1900, the whaling game was changed. Whalers could now hunt bigger and better whales, such as the hulking Blue Whale. The year 1900 was also really the turning point in whaling history. At the turn of the century, an estimated 4.4 million whales were in existence. By 2004, about 1 million were left (Berwald 329). The Blue Whale also significantly went down in numbers, as it is now estimated that there are less than 2,000 remaining in the world’s oceans (“Whale, Blue” 238). With all of these troublesome statistics, people really started to notice the decline of whales, and something had to be done to save the