Modern Whaling
The start of modern whaling began at the start of the twentieth century. Sven Foyn from Tønsberg in Norway, who invented the modern harpoon gun this enabled the whalers to then hunt the largest of the baleen whales. The advent of compressed air allowed the whales to be inflated, so that they did not sink prior to the invention of the modern harpoon gun, whalers could not hunt the large baleen whales because when they were killed they sunk.

The compressed air overcame this problem by allowing air to be pumped into the whale keeping it afloat. Whaling vessels (whale catchers) were being designed specifically for the purposes of hunting the whale. With so many developments in modern whaling this unfortunately speeded up the slaughter of the large baleen whales in the Southern Ocean and ultimately the cessation of commercial whaling. Click on the time line below for more details on the modern whaling industry.

Whale Catcher Ex Whalers