Since man first came across a dead whale on a beach, humans have utilised cetaceans – whales, dolphins and porpoises – for their meat; oil – originally blubber was rendered for heating and lighting and later for margarine and as a lubricant; teeth; ambergris – a stomach secretion used as a perfume fixative; and baleen – plates in the mouths of filter feeding whales used most famously to stiffen corsets.
The defining characteristics of the industry were established as long ago as 1000 AD when the Basque people first began a methodical hunt of whales from ships in the Bay of Biscay. Pursuing local populations of slow moving coastal species, they soon depleted right whales and moved on to new grounds and new species.
This tradition of systematic eradication continued as commercial whaling expanded over the next few centuries, revolutionised by the development of on-board processing, the invention of the exploding harpoon and steam-powered vessels.
