Whales Revive

Cl History

WHALES were sighted off

Rarotonga in August last—a reminder that with new whal ing stations recently established at Norfolk Island and Great Barrier Island, NZ, and investigations going on in Fiji, whaling might again prove a profitable industry in the insolvent Cook Islands.

Whaling was once a Rarotonga industry. The New Zealand Herald of September 27, 1865, printed this report from its correspondent there: Irvine’s Whaling Company caught a whale and a calf here on the 31st (August) which turned out about 45 barrels oil. These whales were the first that were ever caught here. They expect to get another to-morrow.

The despatch also indicated that the whaling company had just been formed.

Whether these were the first whales ever caught at Rarotonga is doubtful though this may have been the first commercial venture.

It must have met with some suc cess, for ten years later —and pos sibly much later than that—quant ities of whale oil were included in the cargoes of schooners arriving at Auckland from Rarotonga.

Here, for example, is the cargo of the 63-ton schooner- Blanche, Captain Harrison, inwards from Rarotonga on October 8, 1876: 15 tons whale and coconut oil, 45 bales cotton, 3,000 coconuts, 15,000 oranges.

The Herald of the day before the Rarotonga news despatch already quoted contained the following in triguing item: “We have been asked to con tradict a statement that appeared the other day in a contemporary, which said that Captain Smith, of the schooner St. Hilda, at Raro tonga, was taking steps to disguise the vessel and change her name.

Our informant states that no such thing has been done, but that the St. Hilda is lying at Rarotonga just as she arrived at that place, and her captain was awaiting orders from Auckland; in the meantime he has engaged several boat crews of whalers and Kanakas and has entered largely into the bay fishing.

When the Victoria sailed from Rarotonga, Captain Smith (of the St. Hilda ) was busy cutting in a school of whales.”

Before Rarotonga interests rush into establishing a whaling factory, however, it is worth observing that although close observations of whale movements were made before the Great Barrier Island whaling station was established this year, the company has had an extremely disappointing season. Whales have just not been sighted.