Page:South - the story of Shackleton's last expedition, 1914-1917.djvu/487

Rh reported whales in moderately large numbers, so that the stock is by no means confined to the two areas above mentioned.

The effective fishing area may be assumed to lie within a radius of a hundred miles from each shore station and floating-factory anchorage, and a rough estimate of all the Falkland stations works out at 160,000 square miles. The total for the whole Falkland area is about 2,000,000 square miles, which is roughly less than a sixth of the total Antarctic sea area. The question then arises as to how far the "catch percentage" during the short fishing season affects the total stock, but so far one can only conjecture as to the actual results from a comparison of the numbers seen, chiefly by scientific and other Expeditions, in areas outside the intensive fishing area with the numbers and percentage of each species captured in the intensive fishing area. Sufficient evidence, however, seems to point quite definitely to one species—the humpback—being in danger of extermination, but the blue and fin whales—the other two species of rorquals which form the bulk of the captures—appear to be as frequent now as they have ever been.

The whales captured at the various whaling-stations of the Falkland area are confined largely to three species—blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), fin whale (Balaenoptera physalis), and humpback (Megaptera nodosa); sperm whales (Physeter catodon) and right whales (Balaena glacialis) being only occasional and rare captures, while the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) appeared in the captures at South Georgia in 1913, and now forms a large percentage of the captures at the Falkland Islands. During the earlier years of whaling at South Georgia, and up to the fishing season 1910-11, humpbacks formed practically the total catch. In 1912-13 the following were the percentages for the three rorquals in the captures at South Georgia and South Shetlands:

Humpback 38 per cent., fin whale 36 per cent., blue whale 20 per cent. Of late years the percentages have altered considerably, blue whales and fin whales predominating, humpbacks decreasing rapidly. In 1915, the South Georgia Whaling Company (Messrs. Salvesen, Leith) captured 1085 whales, consisting of 15 per cent. humpback, 25 per cent. fin whales, 58 per cent. blue whales, and 2 right whales. In the same year the captures of three companies at the South Shetlands gave 1512 whales, and the percentages worked out at 12 per cent. humpbacks, 42 per cent. fin whales, and 45 per cent. blue whales. In 1919, the Southern Whaling and Sealing Company captured (at Stromness, South Georgia) 529 whales, of which 2 per cent. were humpbacks, 51 per cent. fin whales, and 45 per cent. blue whales.