Once we were whalers

Let's have a look at our own whaling history, writes Ben-Peter Terpstra.

Australia good? Japan bad? History understands that when it comes to whaling, hypocrisy and censorship are more than just friends. In Australia, they’re close allies.

Once we were whalers. Still our whaling history is scrubbed out of textbooks or minimised, without justification. One can also watch hours of Australian television, dedicated to demonising Japanese whalers, without ever learning about the many ways in which our whaling industry contributed to Australia’s prosperity. Along with edited histories, lazy school curriculum standards, and a cosy ignorance comes a new self-righteousness, a new superiority - I sniff therefore I am!

“Tasmania alone in the 1840s built 400 vessels ranging from small cutters to ships of 500 tons that joined the England-Australian run,” wrote Geoffrey Blainey in The Tyranny of Distance. “Whaling was a mainstay of the shipyards, and scores of large whaling ships were launched in Hobart or Sydney, with popular ceremonies and quaint toasts.”

By July of 1954, The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting, without controversy, that “Anderson Meat Industries Ltd has acquired the Byron Whaling” Company. The piece stated that “the new subsidiary has a quota of 120 whales and operations are expected to begin next week …” From oil to stockfeed, a whale had more uses than a cow, or even Uncle Joe’s sheep farm.

One can argue that Australia was built on the whale’s back - not the sheep’s. Culturally and economically speaking, it is hard to write a history of our nation, without acknowledging our whaling past. And yet, our new national draft curriculum standards and mainstream textbooks like Jacaranda essentials History 2 by Maureen Anderson and Anne Low manage to do so brilliantly.

“One suspects,” explains Blainey, “that our reluctance to see the importance of whaling stems from an apathy towards maritime history”. “Or history in general,” I thought. “Is Blainey being too generous?” At any rate, Australian students deserve an explanation. Our campaigning journalists too, need to study up. For “as late as 1833 whaling is New South Wales’ main export industry” according to records.

Campaigning journalists are happy to religiously parrot Greenpeace’s talking points and highly questionable research, relating to whale numbers. The whale-first propagandist too forgets that Australia not only participated in whaling but promoted international whaling for decades. He also forgets that post-war icons like Ray Martin ate whale meat. But never mind. Today our elites preach about the evils of whaling, to the oriental hordes, after having taken our share.

Or so it must seem that way, to an informed citizen. “One of the reasons why the ports of Sydney and Hobart held such a high part of the population of Australia in the 1830s was the strength of whaling,” according to Blainey. Indeed it wasn’t uncommon for foreign whalers to spend big, like modern-day sailors. They needed repairs, provisions, and other essentials. Not surprisingly, therefore, “it was estimated in Hobart in the early 1840s that each foreign vessel in port spent an average of £300, not counting the sovereigns their crews slapped onto counters in waterfront inns.”

In the 1840s, newspapers benefited from the whaling industry too, on many levels. Advertisements, for example, informed foreign whalers where to access fresh water, where to purchase fresh foods, where to find wood and offered information concerning shipwrights and boat-builders. Call them enablers, if you’d like. Or co-conspirators. You see, Australian newspapers were more than happy to cash in back then. Today’s media prefers to moralise, however.

Arguably, some office-bound environmentalists feel uncomfortable with Australia’s whaling record. But what’s really changed? Today’s elites sniff at the thought of killing whales, and then merrily purchase animal-tested products, endorsed by celebrities, in major newspapers. Hypocrisy is everywhere. And because many of us don’t like to think about thousands of laboratory bunnies, I wonder if our media watchdogs are projecting. Would you rather be a harpooned whale or one beauty company’s pound puppy, to make a point about cruelty? And do 50,000 tortured bunnies make a whale?

Blainey (for example) writes about men tracking the large fish-shaped mammals, as weighty as 25 elephants, and what that really means: “Chasing whales was therefore the most dangerous and masculine of all seafaring trades.”

More: “The insidious enemies of whales, however,” explains Blainey, “were not the crews with harpoons and lances but rather women and their households in Europe and North America.”

In the Book of Jonah, we read about a prophet who was saved by a whale, but in the Australian context, women were - like it or not - saving the whaling industry. Perfumes. Chichi candles. Soaps. Domestic lamps. Corsets. Umbrella frames. So, I have to say that when I hear foreigners sharing their whale-eating experiences, I don’t feel smug. I appreciate their raw honesty, their time-honoured traditions. Who can ignore the whale in our room? Besides our educrats, I mean.

Ben-Peter Terpstra is an Australian satirist and cartoon lover. His works are posted on numerous sites from American Thinker (California) to Quadrant Online (Sydney, Australia). You can find him at his blogs Pizza Trays and Beer Bottles and Quote Digger. Article courtesy of OnLine Opinion.

Comments

[Andy Semple]

1.

As the dominate species on the planet, we get to pick and choose what we hunt and eat.
I have no problem eating other species (beef, lamb, fish, prawns, chicken etc) and I suppose if Whale was an abundant species I’d probably eat it too.
Now we all know the Japanese use that BS scientific excuse to hunt whales but at the end of the day, there’s not much we can really do about it.

[TerjeP (say tay-a)]

2.

I have been concerned for some time that our whaling history is being down played. Even those that oppose whaling should want our whaling history out in the open and better known. A great article Ben.

[Ben]

3.

I worked with a number of whale-eating Japanese men, and some women. Apparently, the "big fish" go down well with a nice white wine.

I’d like to try whale with chips and a few beers.

[Janet H. Thompson]

4.

What about the TUNA?

[Ben]

5.

I’m glad you raised the tuna issue. Many green imperialists attack whaling. Then, they go for tuna fishing. Their stated aim is to create a vegan society where no “sea kittens” (fish) are eaten by man.

[Andrew R]

6.

Thanks for this, Ben. The historical perspective is important here - but I think you've come at the anti-whaling argument from slightly the wrong angle. Just because a country has participated in a certain activity in the past, does not mean they are barred from ever criticising it.

Once, countries like Australia did not allow women to vote. Yet, you would certainly agree this does not disqualify us from criticism of those countries which continue to disenfranchise women in this way.

The above is not to say that I don't agree with your broad position on the anti-whaling movement - i.e. that it is hypocritical, ill-informed and overly emotive. I do agree with you.

However, while aknowledging our whaling past (as you've done here nicely), what matters more is the present. It is true that minke whales are not, currently, an endagered species. If harvested responsibly and as humanely as possible, there is no argument - besides an illogical and emotional one - to say whales should never be hunted. If numbers of hunted species did drop to dangerous lows, that would be a game-changer and evidence that the hunt had not been hitherto sustainable. In this case, restrictions should be imposed.

That said, there is an argument that certain varieties of whale (humpbacks for instance, which are endangered, but not presently hunted) are, as a resource, worth more alive than dead. They are tourist attractions that drive a not insubtantial industry. But this doesn't apply to minke whales, necessarily.

The big problem with the position of anti-whaling advocates is that it attaches an arbitrarily higher value to certain types of animals than others, regardless of their level of endangeredness (if that's a word). The big hypocrisy is not our history, but our willingness to kill and consume all manner of what we deem "lesser" beasts while deciding that whales are somehow sacred and to be protected at all costs. We then thrust this view upon the rest of the world in a haughty and arrogant manner. Does New Dheli complain about much of the world's consumption of cattle prducts, the cow being a sacred creature in the Hindu religion? No, they have more sense - and modesty - than that.

The Japanese rightly point to Australia's notorious kangaroo culls, about which there is very little outrage, as evidence of our hypocrisy. The culls are, if anything, worse than whaling as the carcasses are often left to simply rot. Humane? do you know what happens to a joey discovered in the pouch of a shot roo? Its not pretty.

You identify another aspect of this modern hypocrisy in the continued willingness to consume animal-tested products. However, I'm not sure exactly where you are going with the "women as historical enemies of the whale" argument...

I must diverge with you on tuna, however. The statistics on the dwindling numbers of Atlantic tuna, in particular, are quite alarming. Alas, another graphic illustration of the tragedy of the commons. Sustainable and sensible regulation of tuna stocks is not about eliminating the eating of fish, it is about ensuring that the resource can continue to be exploited into the future - to everyone's benefit.

disclaimer - I've eaten whale, both cooked and 'nama' - or raw sashimi-style. Cooked, it tastes like liver. Raw, it is exquisite - rich and oily.