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A little more than 20 years ago, the
illegal fishing of whales in the Southern Hemisphere came to an
end. Thousands of the scientific papers were devoted to questions
related to the development of whales. Biological, economic , technological
, social and nature preservation aspects attracted the attention
of hundreds of scientists, engineers, technologists, designers,
and shipbuilders for many years. The halting of the functioning
of an entire portion of the world's ocean fishing was not an ordinary
event. Therefore even up to present time there is maintained among
the world's scientific community a great interest in the history
of whaling, and in the scientific information which was gathered
over the course of many years of sea fishing and scientific
research expeditions.
The Soviet whale fishing, which started with one flotilla
In 1947 in the Southern Hemisphere,
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became a relatively powerful
field after several years by which time it included four processing
bases and dozens of modern whaling ships. In should be also
noted that by the beginning of the Second World War (1939)
the raw material base of Antarcticwha-ling was undercut to
a significant extent and only the war itself hindered its
complete depletion. Proof of that is the slowing down of this
activity by such traditional whaling countries as Norway and
England, which had several flotillas working in the Antarctic:
the industry did not prove |
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itself worthwhile in economic terms. Obviously the growing Soviet whaling fleet did not have enough
of a raw material base and, as a result, it, too, economically could
not justify itself within the framework of the International Convention
on Regulation of Whaling, a participant in which the Soviet Union
became in 1947. Nevertheless, the processing bases, one bigger than
another, went out to whale.
By signing the International Whaling Convention in 1946, the Soviet
Union obligated itself to live up to the Rules of the industry.
At te same time these rules were not lived up to by any single Soviet
flotilla and the whaler caught practically any whale which they
met (particularly those which gave the largest amount of whale oil).
It is natural that such activity had to be hidden. That was possible
to do only by falsifying the statistics which were presented to
the International Whaling Commission. All the data was falsified,
including the beginning and ending of the whaling, the numbers,
species makeup, size of whales caught and regions of whaling (far
beyond the permitted areas), age and sex (many females were caught
and recorded as males, and many were lactating or very young) and
the quantity of manufactured product. The real facts force one to
believe that the international community must review practically
all population statistics presented to the IWC about a variety of
whale species, including humpbacks, southern blue whales, fin whales,
sei whales, and Bryde whales. Furthermore, this data force one to
review many of the traditional views on the distribution of whales
in the world's oceans. It turns out, for example that the secret
Soviet whaling industry killed major population of whales not only
in the waters of New Zealand and the Antarctic, but also in the
northwestern part of the Indian Ocean and in
the southwest Atlantic - that is, in most areas where significant
numbers of whales in general were not known to be found until recently.
It is natural that the falsified commercial statistics, utilized
as a base for accounting concerning the state of the numbers and
well-being of the population of large types of whales warped the
accuracy of the results. In so doing, the true (factual) data were
sharply reduced and practically not available for use. Although
back in 1982 the official stamp of secrecy was removed from the
factual materials, they remained, as before, not very available
for researchers and the retrospective evaluation of the damage which
the Soviet whaling fleet inflicted on the population of large species
of whales not only in the Antarctic but in the whole
Southern Hemisphere. Starting in 1983, there began the destruction
of original materials: decs journals, "passports" on the catch of whales in which was included the type of whale, size, sex, biological state, etc.As a result, much material
was lost with no way of returning it. Only in 1995 there were
published the real data which were collected and systematized
by a group of scientists under the leadership of Professor
V.A. Zemsky (Moscow): Candidate of
Whaling base ship "Soviet Ukraine"
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Biological Sciences, D.D.
Tormosov (Kaliningrad), Candidate of Biological Science, Yu.
A. Mikhalev (Odessa), and Doctor of Biological Sciences, A
A. Berzin (Vladivostok). All of these scientists, at one time
or another, took part as scientific observers in the Soviet
Antarctic whaling operations, and are professionally acquainted
with the peculiarities of whaling. In the table below the
real and falsified whale catch data during the trips in 1947-1972
is presented. |
| Species |
Whaling fleet "Slava" |
Whaling fleet "Soviet Ukraine"* |
Whaling fleet "Yury Dolgorukii"**
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Whaling fleet "Soviet Russia"*** |
Total by species |
| IWC |
real |
IWC |
real |
IWC |
real |
IWC |
real |
IWC |
real |
| Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) |
2529 |
2042 |
949 |
309 |
154 |
435 |
199 |
516 |
3831 |
3302 |
| Pygmy blue whale (B. musculus brevicauda) |
- |
1678 |
- |
1820 |
- |
1884 |
- |
1476 |
- |
6858 |
| Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) |
27952 |
22423 |
11077 |
4874 |
7481 |
5542 |
6125 |
4565 |
52635 |
37404 |
| Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) |
3995 |
3084 |
11410 |
14223 |
5702 |
9861 |
8642 |
18926 |
29749 |
46094 |
| Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) |
- |
277 |
3 |
147 |
4 |
5 |
3 |
548 |
10 |
977 |
| Minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) |
715 |
123 |
383 |
51 |
64 |
52 |
87 |
122 |
1249 |
348 |
| Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) |
1579 |
21912 |
873 |
1691 |
150 |
7205 |
103 |
2441 |
2705 |
33249 |
| Northern right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) 1 |
- |
396 |
3 |
335 |
1 |
717 |
- |
94 |
4 |
1542 |
| Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) |
5717 |
7134 |
16873 |
14237 |
9942 |
16603 |
18183 |
25144 |
50715 |
63118 |
| Killer whale (Orcinus orca) |
331 |
57 |
103 |
22 |
40 |
5 |
8 |
28 |
482 |
112 |
| Northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampulatus) 2 |
- |
7 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
8 |
6 |
10 |
15 |
| Other whales |
- |
3 |
- |
17 |
- |
1 |
- |
8 |
|
29 |
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| Total by fleets |
42818 |
59136 |
41675 |
37727 |
23539 |
42311 |
33358 |
53874 |
141390 |
193048 |
1 Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis)
2 Southern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon planifrons)
* 1959-1972 trips
** 1960-1972 trips
*** 1961-1972 trips
Based on the book "Soviet Antarctic Whaling Data (1947-1972)", Moscow,
1995
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