Whaling in Canada
Whaling in Canada encompasses both aboriginal and commercial whaling, and has existed on all three Canadian oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have whaling traditions dating back millennia, and the hunting of cetaceans continues by Inuit (mostly beluga and narwhal, but also the subsistence hunting of the bowhead whale). By the late 20th century, watching whales was a more profitable enterprise than hunting them.
Pre-contact
Stranded whales, or drift whales that died at sea and washed ashore, provided useful resources such as meat, blubber (rendered into oil) and bone to coastal communities. Eponymous coastal features include Drift Whale Bay within Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park on the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island.[1][2]
16th century
The Basque whalers reached Newfoundland and Labrador early, possibly a century before Columbus, but there is no evidence for this claim, and the first documented voyages to the New World are from the 16th century.[5] By the second quarter of the 16th century the Basques were hunting in the Strait of Belle Isle, between the island of Newfoundland and the mainland of Labrador. They hunted the North Atlantic right whale and the bowhead whale, although the voyages had begun in search of cod.
17th, 18th, 19th centuries
The Basque "fisheries" ended by 1697.[6]
By this point the
The Industrial Revolution massively increased the demand for whale oil, which led to more whaling all over the world. In Arctic Canada it was a significant way for Inuit to come into contact with the outside world. The Hudson's Bay Company opened trading posts such as Great Whale River in northern Quebec (1820), where products of the commercial whale hunt were processed.
20th century
In the twentieth century there was a commercial whaling industry, small by global standards, in British Columbia, as evidenced by place names such as
Whaling by First Nations continues to the present. Data for narwhals start in 1972, with 600 narwhals killed per year in the 1970s, dropping to 300–400 per year in the late 1980s and 1990s, and rising again since 1999.[7] Incomplete counts of beluga hunts, for the Beaufort Sea, begin in 1960, with 14 to 212 belugas killed per year. Parts of Nunavut and Nunavik are covered starting in 1996, with 400–700 killed per year.[8] Bowhead whales are also taken: in northwestern Canada one each in 1991 and 1996, and in northeastern Canada one each in 1994, 1996 and 1998.[9]
Pour la suite du monde, a classic of Canadian cinema, is a 1963 documentary in which the film producers persuaded the inhabitants of a St Lawrence island to try once again to catch a beluga, something they had not done for decades. The animal is trapped live, and transported by truck to an aquarium in New York City. According to the CBC, "Commercial hunting continued until 1959, and sport hunting lasted another two decades."[10]
Canada withdrew from the International Whaling Commission following the 1986 vote for a moratorium.
21st century
Harvested meat is sold through shops and supermarkets in northern communities where whale meat is a component of the traditional diet.[16] Hunters in Hudson's Bay rarely eat beluga meat. They give a little to dogs, and leave the rest for wild animals.[17] Other areas may dry the meat for later consumption by humans. An average of one or two vertebrae and one or two teeth per beluga or narwhal are carved and sold.[17] One estimate of the annual gross value received from Beluga hunts in Hudson Bay in 2013 was CA$600,000 for 190 belugas, or CA$3,000 per beluga, and CA$530,000 for 81 narwhals, or CA$6,500 per narwhal. However, the net income, after subtracting costs in time and equipment, was a loss of CA$60 per person for belugas and CA$7 per person for narwhals. Hunts receive subsidies, but they continue as a tradition, rather than for the money, and the economic analysis noted that whale watching may be an alternate revenue source. Of the gross income, CA$550,000 was for Beluga skin and meat, to replace beef, pork and chickens which would otherwise be bought, CA$50,000 was received for carved vertebrae and teeth. CA$370,000 was for Narwhal skin and meat, CA$150,000 was received for tusks, and carved vertebrae and teeth of males, and CA$10,000 was received for carved vertebrae and teeth of female Narwhals.[17]
Cetaceans are not hunted elsewhere, although humans kill them via
See also
- John R. Jewitt, an English blacksmith who spent three years as a captive of the whale-hunting Nuu-chah-nulth people from 1802 to 1805
- Whaling on the Pacific Northwest Coast
- Whaling in the United States
References
- ^ "#1 – Drift Whale Bay". www.geonames.org. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
- ^ "Drift Whale Bay". knowbc.com. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
- OCLC 551719381.
- OCLC 247081771.
- ^ Barkham, M. M. (1994). "Book review: Proulx, J-P., Basque whaling in Labrador in the 16th century (1993)". Newfound. Stud. 10: 260–286.
- ^ Aguilar, A. 1986. A Review of Old Basque Whaling and its Effect on the Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis) of the North Atlantic. Reports of the International Whaling Commission (special issue) 10: 191-199.
- bioRxiv 10.1101/059691.
- ^ Sources for Canadian Beluga hunts by location and year:
- Beaufort Sea
- 1960–1969 Burns, John J. and Glenn A. Seaman (1 November 1986). "Investigations of Belukha Whales in Coastal Waters of Western and Northern Alaska II. Biology and Ecology" (PDF). Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program. Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 March 2018.
- 1970–99 Harwood, Lois A., Pamela Norton, Billy Day and Patricia A. Hall (1 March 2002). "The Harvest of Beluga Whales in Canada's Western Arctic: Hunter-Based Monitoring of the Size and Composition of the Catch (has data through 1984)". Arctic. 55: 10–20. doi:10.14430/arctic687. Archived from the original on 3 May 2018 – via University of Calgary.)
{{cite journal}}
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- 2000–2012 Fisheries Joint Management Committee (2013). "Beaufort Sea Beluga Management Plan, 4th amended printing" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 March 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018. Includes struck and lost.
- 2013–15Fisheries, NOAA (17 September 2018). "Marine Mammal Stock Assessment Reports (SARs) by Region :: NOAA Fisheries". fisheries.noaa.gov. Archived from the original on 3 May 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018. includes struck and lost.
- 2014 Loseto, Lisa L.; Brewster, Jasmine D.; Ostertag, Sonja K.; Snow, Kathleen; MacPhee, Shannon A.; McNicholl, Darcy G.; Choy, Emily S.; Giraldo, Carolina; Hornby, Claire A. (2018-02-21). "Diet and feeding observations from an unusual beluga harvest in 2014 near Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada". Arctic Science. 4 (3): 421–431. ISSN 2368-7460.
- Nunavut
- Arviat SULUK, THOMAS K., and SHERRIE L. BLAKNEY (2008). "Land Claims and Resistance to the Management of Harvester Activities in Nunavut" (PDF). Arctic. 61 (5): 62–70. hdl:10535/5552. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 September 2017 – via University of Calgary.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Numavik, Quebec
- 1996–2002 Kishigami, Noboru (2005). "Co-Management of Beluga Whales in Nunavik (Arctic Quebec), Canada". Senri Ethnological Studies. 67: 121–144. Archived from the original on 3 May 2018.
- 2003–16 Rogers, Sarah (22 August 2016). "Nunatsiaq News *2016-08-22: NEWS: Nunavik's beluga season closes early". Nunatsiaq News. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- ^ a b "IWCDBv6.1, IWC Summary Catch Database version 6.1". IWC. July 2016. Retrieved 2018-12-22.
- ^ "Call of the Baby Beluga". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
- bioRxiv 10.1101/059691.
- ^ Muto, M.M., V. T. Helker, R. P. Angliss, B. A. Allen, P. L. Boveng, J.M. Breiwick, M. F. Cameron, P. J. Clapham, S. P. Dahle, M. E. Dahlheim, B. S. Fadely, M.C. Ferguson, L. W. Fritz, R. C. Hobbs, Y. V. Ivashchenko, A. S. Kennedy, J.M. London, S. A. Mizroch, R. R. Ream, E. L. Richmond, K. E. W. Shelden, R. G. Towell, P. R. Wade, J. M. Waite, and A. N. Zerbini (2017). "Alaska Marine Mammal Stock Assessments, 2017 (draft)". Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS, NOAA. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Fisheries, NOAA (2018-01-31). "Draft Marine Mammal Stock Assessment Reports, NOAA Fisheries". www.fisheries.noaa.gov. Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
- ^ Rogers, Sarah (2016-08-22). "Nunatsiaq News 2016-08-22: NEWS: Nunavik's beluga season closes early". Nunatsiaq News. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
- hdl:10535/5552. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-09-21. Retrieved 2020-08-31 – via University of Calgary.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - JSTOR 40316325.
- ^ S2CID 59126947.