the hunting of whales (whale) for food and oil. Whaling was once conducted around the world by seafaring nations in pursuit of the giant animals that seemed as limitless as the oceans in which they swam. However, since the mid-20th century, when whale populations began to drop catastrophically, whaling has been conducted on a very limited scale. It is now the subject of great scrutiny, both by formal regulatory bodies and by nongovernmental organizations.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, whaling vessels were chiefly merchant ships (occasionally barks (bark)) transporting equipment, crews, and catch. They were double-hulled and reinforced with beams against sea ice and were heavily armed against attack. Displacing 250–350 tons, these vessels were two or three times the tonnage of the average merchant ship for the sake of cargo capacity. Three tiers of barrels could be crammed below deck, while crews berthed on the half deck. American whaling ships were initially smaller than British vessels and were painted to look like warships. During the 19th century purpose-built barks measuring 30–45 metres (100–150 feet) and displacing 300–400 tons became more common, and in the 1850s clipper ships (clipper ship) gained favour.

Throughout this period, catching was by hand-thrown harpoon from double-ended boats carrying five to seven men. The boats usually measured seven to nine metres long, and in America they were made of half-inch cedar planks. European Arctic boats were stronger, carver-built craft with oak frames and three-quarter-inch fir planking. Harpooners and boatsteerers were the key men when the strike was made. After the harpoon hit its mark, the whale was “played” at the end of ropes and killed by lance when exhausted. The catch was then towed to the whaler, where blubber and baleen were cut away by men either working from fragile platforms or walking with spiked boots directly upon the carcass. Finally, what was left of the animal was winched on deck for cutting, casking, and carrying home. (For a contemporaneous description of the methods used by 18th-century whalemen, see the Britannica Classic, Whale Fishery.) From about 1760 onward, sperm whales were rendered in “try-works”—a pair of very large cast-iron pots (try-pots) on a water-filled brick structure approximately two by three metres situated near the forward hatch. The only other technical innovation of this period—the harpoon gun—was introduced around 1800 but proved to be a failure.

As larger floating factories accelerated processing, there was pressure to improve catching, and during the 1930s the number of catchers per factory rose from four to eight. Catchers became progressively larger and faster and finally were able to overtake swimming rorquals regularly. The Japanese (Japan) developed diesel engines, and boats equipped with these engines generated 2,500 horsepower while displacing only 600 tons. Although they were very noisy, their lack of stealth was more than compensated for by greater speed and maneuverability. Such efficiency, however, greatly increased fuel consumption and running costs and ultimately led to economic problems and reckless overfishing.

With no more concentrations of large whales remaining, European companies withdrew after the 1962–63 season, leaving whaling chiefly to the Soviets and the Japanese. Soviet enterprises were subsidized, and modern refrigeration allowed the Japanese to make a valuable delicacy out of the meat. But even this whaling was doomed as it rapidly depleted the last of the “commercial” whales. No factories sailed after 1978, and by the 1980s the international whale trade was dead, although small-scale coastal whaling continued.

The demise of whales and whaling was regularly forecast in the 1930s. The major states and companies involved introduced their own controls, but restraint was hampered by the selfishness of commerce and the ignorance of science. In 1931 the League of Nations (Nations, League of) organized an International Whaling Convention, but this had little success in leading the way toward restrictive regulations. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established in 1946 to conserve whale stocks. It prohibited the killing of right and gray whales (gray whale) and limited the annual Antarctic kill to 15,000 Blue Whale Units (BWU; 1 BWU = 2 fin, 2.5 humpback, or 6 sei whales). The commission created closed areas and closed seasons around the world, but enforcement was difficult, and the BWU standard was overoptimistic about total and optimum whale stocks. Eventually, scientific pressure coinciding with commercial crisis resulted in the downward adjustment of the BWU limit to 2,300 by 1962. Soon afterward, two additional species were protected: the humpback whale (1963) and the blue whale (1965). In 1972 the United Nations voted in vain for a moratorium on whaling, but instead the BWU was replaced with quotas for each of the other species. In 1979 the use of floating factories was banned except for minke whales. Finally, to protect remaining stocks and allow time for detailed research, a moratorium on all commercial whaling during the 1986–90 seasons was agreed to by members of the IWC. It remains in force. However, some residual Japanese and Norwegian whaling continues, often under the guise of scientific research.

Recent books on the practice and history of whaling include Richard Ellis, Men and Whales (1991, reissued 1999), a comprehensive treatment with chapters arranged chronologically and geographically. Relationships between opposing sides of current whaling issues are examined in Peter J. Stoett, The International Politics of Whaling (1997), which includes a chronology of whaling. Gordon Jackson, The British Whaling Trade (1978), explores the international and economic context of whaling. Commercial whaling statistics since 1930 are contained in serial volumes of International Whaling Statistics.The standard work on modern whaling remains an abridged English translation of J.N. Tønnessen and A.O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling (1982; originally published in Norwegian in 4 vol., 1959–70). Other works devoted to more specific segments of the trade are Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman, and Karin Gleiter, In Pursuit of Leviathan: Technology, Institutions, Productivity, and Profits in American Whaling, 1816–1906 (1997), which analyzes the economic factors underlying the rise and fall of American whaling, including technology of whaling vessels; Briton Cooper Busch, Whaling Will Never Do for Me: The American Whaleman in the Nineteenth Century (1994), which covers the social history of whaling; Granville Allen Mawer, Ahab's Trade: The Saga of South Seas Whaling (1999), which includes excerpts from a wide variety of historical documents; Harry Morton, The Whale's Wake (1982), which relates whaling to the European occupation of the South Pacific; John R. Bockstoce, Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic (1986, reprinted with corrections 1995), which traces the history of whaling in the North Pacific from the mid-18th to the early 20th century; and E.J. Slijper, Whales, trans. from Dutch, 2nd ed., edited by Richard J. Harrison (1979), which presents a European viewpoint of whaling.A much earlier yet still modern survey is provided by J.T. Jenkins, A History of the Whale Fisheries: From the Basque Fisheries of the Tenth Century to the Hunting of the Finner Whale at the Present Date (1921, reprinted 1971). Nineteenth-century descriptions of whaling include W. Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery, 2 vol. (1820, reprinted 1969); and Alexander Starbuck, History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876 (1878, reissued 1989), featuring a list of all known voyages of 1715–1876.Gordon Jackson