Animals: Whale Slaughter

Whaling is not what it used to be in the days of Moby Dick. Stinking old sailing whalers have given way to stinking little steamers. Earringed harpooners have yielded to modern marksmen, who earn as much as $10,000 a season for shooting harpoons from a cannon. Instead of being dragged alongside, the whale is pulled aboard a “floating factory” ship and converted into oil right on the spot.

Of the world’s 39 “floating factories,” which annually take 3,000,000-odd barrels of whale oil, only two fly the U. S. flag. Smaller of the two is the American Whaling Co.’s 6,400-ton Frango, mother ship and rendering plant for a fleet of six whale chasers. Last spring, when the Frango was about to set out for Shark Bay off Western Australia, the U. S. Coast Guard asked for a volunteer to see that no international treaty provision was violated. Lieutenant Thomas Robley Midtlyng, 29, volunteered for the job.

Back in Manhattan last week, Midtlyng told a whale of a story. His life aboard ship had been clear sailing as far as Shark Bay. There Captain Johannes Smith and his crew found that the bay was overhunted: killing many of the whales that were left (small ones and cows with their young) was prohibited. Largest taken the whole cruise was 49 feet long, 14 feet above the minimum. Captain & crew were tempted to kill undersize whales. According to Lieutenant Midtlyng, they did. Each day the high-bowed, gun-mounted chaser boats set out, each night returned, tugging their targets behind.

Lieutenant Midtlyng had known little about whaling when he boarded the Frango, but reported that he soon had reason to believe that the crew were violating the law. He said they brought in humpback whales shorter than 35 feet and whales which were nursing their young. Although the crew had insisted at the outset that they were experts at telling the length of a whale in the water, they now argued: “It’s difficult to tell how long they are.” Then they told him that they found the whales “dead and floating.” When Midtlyng pointed out that the dead whales bore harpoon marks, the whalers had no comeback.

After that, he said, they took illegal whales in the daytime, did not bring them aboard until they thought the snooping Coast Guarder had bunked in for the night. Melodramatic climax of his tale: when he caught them blubber-handed, they began to treat him as a social outcast, and he lived for months in increasing apprehension, among black looks and whispered threats.

When the Frango put in at its pier off Staten Island, N. Y., Lieutenant Midtylng hopped ashore, made his report. Twenty-four hours later U. S. officials seized the ship’s $500,000 cargo, sealed it, filed a libel action against 423 tons of her whale oil.