It is very easy to look back from our privileged positions in the 21st century and condemn the whalers of the past. If you could go back to that time, you might find that circumstances could give you a somewhat different perspective on things. A quick Google of "Whaling in Cook Strait" (the name of the film) describes it as a "National Film Unit newsreel from 1950". The chasers (named CHACHALOT 1, 2, 3 etc) were powered with WWII war surplus tank engines. They were very, very noisy. I know - I have ridden in one in the late 1960s. When the Tory Channel station stopped operations, the chasers were sold off. One of them wound up as farm boat at Titirangi farm in Guards Bay. For most of the 1960s, we lived in Blenheim. My father was the visiting teacher for the Correspondence School. His job was to go around visiting all the Correspondence School children in his area to make sure they were keeping up. Pretty easy gig - most of them were. His area was from Farewell Spit lighthouse to Cape Campbell lighthouse and from Stephens Island lighthouse to Molesworth Station (Mr Google's excellent maps will show you that this is a fairly large area requiring considerable travel on unsealed roads or by boat if there are no roads). He regularly visited both Titirangi and the whaling station. We spent a couple of amazing holidays at Titirangi. On one occasion, the farmer took us out in his ex-chaser to catch a feed of blue cod. It did not take long - I think we might have got 2 feeds - in very short time. Anyway, two things struck me about the boat: (a) it was very fast and (b) it was extremely noisy. After one of his trips out to the whaling station (the station ceased operation in 1964 but they did not all leave immediately), my father came home and, from his bag, produced two sperm whale teeth. Big teeth. The sperm whale was not the preferred whale for the hunters but numbers were dropping and they took what they could get. These teeth were given to my father by a man called Trevor Norton who was the last New Zealander to harpoon a whale. These teeth sit on my book case. The Tory Channel whaling station was blamed for the drop in whale numbers in New Zealand waters. People were not aware that huge fleets of mother ships and chasers were working the Antarctic waters scooping up everything they could find. They called this activity "research". I remember seeing this footage several times while I was at school in Blenheim. I also remember feeling a bit queasy about the inequity of humans with internal combustion engines and gunfire stalking whales who just wanted to get to the mating fields. It is a bit anachronistic and utterly unnecessary in this day and age. But try convincing the last few nations that persist with the practise...

@shimmeringreflection

Жыл бұрын

Exactly, at the time it was done to make a living. Either that or go hungry. We're now all privileged enough that we can make a living by other means and have been educated to have more empathy

@waru_tait

5 ай бұрын

My whole family grew up there dating back to my great grandfather. Having lived there myself and being able to go there and appreciate it for what it is whenever I want. And knowing what gruesome slaughters went on there, make the beautiful water a bit more terrifying to look at. I know there are no more mako sharks as much in the channel any more but it truly is a scary treacherous deep stretch of water

@jlb8094

Ай бұрын

Bullshit justification for an evil industry.

@jlb8094

Ай бұрын

You can justify any atrocities with that way of thinking.

My great grand father jock Benz was a boiler man/harpoonist at the person whaling station. My grandparents grew up there with my grand mother. And currently my friends parents own arapawa blue pearls. And I use to live out there and we use to look after the houses in the batch area behind the whaling station. I have alot of old photos of my great grand father working away as a boiler man. Cutting up whales and photos of my mother mum *my nan* slowly growing up there and the changes in the pictures are amazing. It's truly a history I'm proud of as us kiwis are proud of hard work and keeping our family fed and happy. I respect my family alot for living working and growing up in such a beautiful place. My heart will always live there

Well, to give you guys a sobering statistic: this is pre-World War 2 footage, the whales shown are Humpbacks and by the time this footage was shot, 90% of the Humpback population was already wiped out. which was not nearly 40 years after the explosive harpoon was invented. After the War, the Humpback was declared virtually extinct and a permanent ban was put on their harvest, in many cases the Sperm whale replaced it as a preferred catch. In old biology books, it was calculated that by 1990 the Sperm whale would have been extinct. We as yet have no idea just how lucky we are that the scientists of that time were wrong.

Crazy

HELL YEAH REAL NZ MEN

Which year's video is this?

Any one know the names of the chaser boats?

sad

@grantnorton121

Жыл бұрын

This was an industry that supported Towns and communities,i am an ancestor and support the fors and againsts

A very, very sad business.

@shimmeringreflection

Жыл бұрын

Was either that or go hungry for the people at the time. Easy to feel sorry for the whales now that we've come up with other ways of making money. Maybe one day people will find out ludicrous that pigs are raised in concrete crates in 2023 and the majority eat the bacon produced from it

💔💔💔💔💔🐳

Whale industry ... or whale slaughter !!!!

@shimmeringreflection

Жыл бұрын

Easy to say that with a 2023 mindset. Different thinking back then. Export whale oil overseas to feed your family or go hungry. Now we're taught to treat animals with the same care we give people.

@jlb8094

Ай бұрын

​@shimmeringreflection different thinking doesn't justify anything. It was an evil industry driven by greed.