Ægir - 15.12.1964, Síða 19

ÆGIR
405
4 báta og lega stöðvarinnar og ákvæði
um þann hámarkstíma, sem líða má frá
því að hvalurinn er skotinn og þar til
byrja verður að vinna hann, gefa full-
komna vernd fyrir þann hval, sem er utan
athafnasvæðis stöðvarinnar, eða frá
Hornbjargi í vestri og austur með öllu
Norðurlandi og suður að Vestmannaeyj-
um.
Ef okkur tekst að halda skynsamlega á
þessum málum í framtíðinni, þá er fram-
tíð hvalveiðanna hér við land björt. Við
höfum þessa veiði fyrir okkur sjálfa, hér
eigum við allt landgrunnið og vel það, því
móðurskipaveiði er bönnuð í Norður-At-
lantshafi og verður ekki leyfð á næstu ár-
um, svo á okkar mið geta engir aðrir sótt.
ABSTRACT.
In this paper the author first gives a brief
summary of the Norwegian whaling in Ice-
landic waters. This whaling started in 1883 and
the annual catch is shown in Fig. 1. In 1903 the
catch reached its maximum, when a total of 1305
whales were killed by 30 whaling boats. In table
1 is shown the number of boats in use every year,
munber of wliales killed, number of barrels of
oil produced, number of whales pr. boat, number
of barrels pr. boat and number of barrels pr.
wliale. After 1902 there was a rather steady de-
cline in the yield and the whaling had already
eome to an ond when it was forbidden by the
Icelandic Althing in 1915.
Whaling from one landstation was resumed in
1935 and carried out until tlie break of the Scc-
ond World War. However, Norwegian floating
factories liad been operating in tliese waters in
the years 1929—1934, but their catches are not
listed in Table 1. Thus the effective protection
of the stocks of whales in this area was only 14
years.
In 1948 wlialing was again started in Icelandic
waters and in the j’ears 1948—1964 tlie catch
constisted of 1941 finw’hales, 1937 spermwhales,
902 seiw’hales, 163 bluewhales and 6 humpbacks.
Tlie bluwhales w’ere proteeted in 1960 and tlie
hmnpbacks in 1955.
Fig. 2 shows the annual catch of the various
species in the period 1948—1964 and in Fig. 3
is shown the geograpliical distribution of the
catches of finwhales i'n the years 1961—1964
according to montlis. Such cliarts are availablo
for all speeies since 1951. All the area round Ice-
land is divided into squares of one degree longi-
tude and half degree latitude and these squares
are then divided into four smaller squares and
the catch of every whale is given within each of
these.
The catches of finwhales liave been moving
rather steadily to the north along the west coast
since 1958 and this is demonstrated in Table 2
which gives the percentage of the annual catch
within eaeli degree latitude.
Fig. 4 shows the annual averages in the lenghts
of the finwliale. There is a steady decrease in
the average lenglit in the first six years and this
is thought to be causcd by gunners taking tlie
biggest animals first from a stock which had been
protected for some years.
Compared to tlie catches of finwliales off
Westem Norway and the Faroes (Fig. 3) the Ice-
landic catches have been rather stable and sugg-
est an independent stock.
In Table 3 the time of one of four wlialing
boats in use in tlie Icelandic whaling, has been
split into various components (in hours) : saling
to the hunting grounds, hunting (jag), searching,
various stops (weather etc.), towing.
The correlation between the number of fin-
whales caught (broad unbroken line), fishing
effort (thin unbroken line) and stops by weather
etc. (broken line) for this single boat is showm
in Fig. 5.
Similar material from the three other boats is
now bcing w’orked up. By this way the number
of whales caught by 100 hours (searching and
hunting) is the follow’ing:
1961 1962 1963 1964
Finwhales 5,7 8,9 8,2 6,8
Spermwliales 6,3 4,6 5,9 7,1
Seiwhales 1,0 0,5 0,1 1,1
Total 13,0 14,0 14,2 15,0
The spermwhale is the second most imijortant
species in tlie Icelandic whaling, but the cateh
consists of males only. In 1963 the Ieelandic
eatcli in numbers was 13,3% of the total in thc
North Atlantic, but 23,9% of the total output
of spermoil. The distribution of the catehes in
the years 1961—1964 is shown in Fig. 6.
In ycars with small catches of finwhales great-
er number of seiwhales are taken as can be seen
in Fig 2.