Whaling in Western Australia
Whaling was one of the first viable industries established in the Swan River Colony following the 1829 arrival of British settlers to Western Australia. The industry had numerous ups and downs until the last whaling station closed in Albany in 1978.
There are two main species of
Early days
"Yankee Whalers" were known to have been operating in the
Albany merchant Thomas Booker Sherratt was operating a bay whaling station at Doubtful Island Bay, 160 km (99 mi) north-east of Albany, by 1836.[2]
By 1837, two local whaling companies were operating: the Fremantle Whaling Company out of Bather's Beach below the
This day will be memorable in the annals of the Colony for the killing of the first whale. At Perth, great firing was heard in the direction of Fremantle and it was supposed that a ship had arrived, but a messenger came in breathless haste to say that boats had struck a whale and were engaged with it. This was all that was known when I came away but everyone was running about elated with the news; I went to Fremantle on Thursday with the Governor and others, to examine a jetty and proposed tunnel which has been projected to be cut through a hill there giving easy access from the beach to the main street. The plan is quite practicable and not very expensive for the distance is only eighty yards and the rock is soft limestone.
The Fremantle Whaling Company had been established in February of that year. A few weeks after the whale was caught, permission was given for the tunnel's construction using prisoners for the labour. The tunnel provided direct access to the Town of
In the first years of the colony, large numbers of the Yankee Whalers, as well as French vessels, frequently operated close inshore including inside
By 1840, increased competition and a decline in international whale oil and bone prices and increased costs led to the two local companies' closures. Some whale boats were used for ferry services on the
The first British pelagic whaler reported off the coast of Western Australia was the Arabian (Captain Thomas Collins) in 1842.[6]
The town of Dunsborough in Geographe Bay evolved from the establishment of the Castle Rock Whaling Station in 1845. During the convict era of Western Australia, many of the ships which brought convicts to the state were whalers, and would revert to their whaling operations for the return voyage.
Throughout the 19th century, descendants of Robert and Ann Heppingstone, who had arrived in the colony in the Warrior in 1830, were prominent in the industry. Members of the family operated whalers in and around
Major work on the history and archaeology of the early whaling industry in Western Australia, as well as relations between colonists and American pelagic whalers, and between both groups and coastal
A whale bone collected as an artefact at an Aboriginal camp near Kalgoorlie in 1897, transported hundreds of kilometres from any coastline, was a vertebra of a young whale that was probably obtained at Esperance and perhaps employed as a carrying dish or culturally valued object.[7]
20th century
The Western Australian Government granted a licence to a Norwegian company in 1912 to operate whaling stations at Frenchman Bay near Albany and Point Cloates (then known as Norwegian Bay) off North West Cape. The company traded profitably for a number of years by making use of the recently invented exploding harpoon and gun on steam powered chaser boats, rather than the old toggling harpoons.[8] Approximately 4,000 whales were caught in that period.[1]
A poor whaling season in 1916 amid pressures brought on by World War I, forced the company to close down.
In the early 1930s, the station at Point Cloates began servicing Norwegian whaling ships again, but again, closure was brought on by the start of World War II. Expanded use of factory ships and support chasers also lessened the need for shore based services.
After the war, in July 1949, the Nor'-West Whaling Company reopened the station.
In September 1950, the
The Albany Whaling Company operated at Frenchman's Bay east of
The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company started at Frenchman Bay in 1952. Initially the station was granted a quota of only 50 humpbacks, but this was increased and at its peak, the company took between 900 and 1100 sperm and humpback whales each year for processing. However, there was a ban on humpback whaling from 1963 which decreased the viability of the catch.
Cheynes Beach struggled commercially for several years prior to its closure in 1978 because of increased fuel costs and uncertain buyers in Europe. The uncertainty of not being able to sell a product finally brought an end to the industry which had been an important contributor to the economy for 140 years and the last whale, a female sperm whale, was taken on 20 November 1978. The final season's catch had 698 sperm whales, 15 short of its quota set by the International Whaling Commission. It was the last whaling station in Australia.
Cheynes Beach Whaling Station is now known as Albany's Historic Whaling Station,[11] a popular tourist destination. Whale watching from Albany centres on humpback whales close to shore. Sperm whales are rarely seen as their migratory path takes them on a course parallel to the coast line and along the continental shelf.
See also
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-0-85905-090-6.
- ^ Gibbs (2010) p.14.
- ^ McIlroy, Jack (1986). "Bathers Bay Whaling Station, Fremantle, Western Australia" (PDF). Australian Historical Archaeology. 4.
- ^ Battye, J.S. (1924). Western Australia : A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth. Oxford.
- ^ "Whaling in Albany". Whale World. Retrieved 22 September 2006.
- ^ The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 7 September 1842, p.3
- ^ Dortch, C.E. (1988). "The Kalgoorlie whale bone, a probable example of long range aboriginal transport of a marine object". Records of the Western Australian Museum. 14 (1): 145–149.
- ^ a b R.G.Chittleborough. "Recent Whaling". www.whales.org.au. Retrieved 22 September 2006.
- ^ "History of Carnarvon". www.westaustralianvista.com. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
- ^ "The Company". Nor-West Seafoods.com. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
- ^ "Albany's Historic Whaling Station at Discovery Bay". Discovery Bay. The Jaycees Community Foundation Inc. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
References
- Suter, Keith D. (October 1982). "Australia's new whaling policy: formulation and implementation". .
- Max Egan (1995). "Australian Whaling History". Retrieved 22 September 2006.
- Heppingstone, I.D. (1966). "Bay whaling in Western Australia". Early Days. 6 (5): 29–41.
- A bibliography of Whaling in Australia
- Pash, Chris (2008). The Last Whale (Fremantle Press) ISBN 978-1-921361-32-6. Fremantle Press. ISBN 9781921361326.
Further reading
- Gibbs, M. (1996). The Historical Archaeology of Shore-based Whaling in Western Australia 1836-1879 (Ph.D. thesis). Centre for Archaeology, University of Western Australia.
- Gibbs, M. (1998). "Colonial Boats and Foreign Ships: The Historical Archaeology of Shore-Based Whaling in Western Australia 1836-1879". In M. Staniforth; S. Lawrence (eds.). Proceedings of the First Australian Southern Whaling Conference. pp. 36–47.
- Gibbs, M. (2000). "Conflict and Commerce – American Whalers and the Western Australian Colonies 1836-1888". The Great Circle – Journal of the Australian Society for Maritime History. 22 (3).
- Gibbs, M. (2005). "Food on the Maritime Frontier: Faunal analysis of the Cheyne Beach Whaling Station 1845-1877". Australasian Journal of Historical Archaeology.
- Gibbs, M. (2003). "Nebinyan's Song – the Aboriginal whalers of southwest Western Australia". Aboriginal History. 27.
- Gibbs, Martin (2010). The shore whalers of Western Australia; Historical archaeology of a maritime frontier. Sydney University Press.