I happened to be almost in at the death
of the biggest finback ever taken. But, speaking generally, the season
was not really prosperous. The station of Seven Islands is worked by
Norwegians, who are the most exterminatingly efficient whalers in the
world. They worked their own whaleries to exhaustion and raised so much
feeling against them among the fishermen that the Norwegian government
forbad every factory along the shore. They then invented floating
factories, which may still be used in Canadian waters with deadly effect
unless we put whaling under conservation. The feeling among the
fishermen here is the same as elsewhere, strongly in favour of the
whales and strongly against the exterminating kind of whaler, because
whales are believed to drive the bait fish close inshore, which is very
"handy" for the fishermen.
The spring sealing of 1912 was a failure on the Canadian Labrador, as
the main "harp" herd was missed by just one day. The whole industry is
carried on by Newfoundlanders and men whose vessels take their catch to
Newfoundland, because the only working plant is concentrated there. The
excessive spring kill greatly depletes the females and young, as it
takes place in the whelping season, when the herds are moving north
along the off-shore ice; and this depletion naturally spoils not only
the Newfoundlanders' permanent industry itself but the much smaller
inshore autumn catch by our own Canadian Labradorians, when the herds
are moving south.
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