Page 87 - Sjæklen2010

87
Summary
This article concerns the Danish Wadden Sea population’s
participation in whale and seal hunting from the 1600s on-
wards.
The hunting of whales in the North Atlantic commenced
in the 1600s following the discovery in 1595 of Spitsber-
gen with large numbers of Greenland whales. Ships from
Holland and Hamburg quickly came to dominate the catch,
which had its golden era from the beginning of the 1600s
to the end of the 1700s. Interest was centred above all on
the blubber, from which it was possible to extract oil for
use in lighting, lubrication, soap production and many other
purposes. Whalebone was also used in the women’s fashion
of the time as stiffeners in crinolines and corsets. But after a
few decades of hunting, it became more and more difficult
to find whales, and seals and walruses were therefore also
hunted on expeditions to the North Atlantic. Smaller ves-
sels were also specially equipped to hunt seals. Although
the catches in the North Atlantic are usually discussed as
having been of whales, many seals were also caught.
Denmark was never a major whaling nation, but many
Danes from the Wadden Sea coasts took part in the catches
in the North Atlantic as seamen on board the whaling and
sealing ships, especially those from Holland and Hamburg,
Altona and Flensburg. The inhabitants of the Wadden Sea
island of Rømø in particular were known for their skill as
captains and harpooners. Their participation in the North
Atlantic catches culminated in the 1770s, when there were
30 captains on Rømø and over ten times as many seamen
in the island’s total population of around 1,500. After the
1770s, Rømø’s seafarers increasingly changed to working
in the merchant fleet.
A few ships from the Danish Wadden Sea area – Hjer-
ting, Fanø, Ribe and Rømø – were also equipped in the
1700s for hunting in the North Atlantic. The ships were
equipped with the aid of capital from the nearby merchant
towns, and whale oil factories were set up on the coast to
process the blubber.
The Wadden Sea ships appear to have concentrated
almost exclusively on seals. In the customs books of the
1700s for Varde custom house in the northernmost past of
the Wadden Sea, of which books of seven years have been
preserved, it is possible to follow the ships which departed
on hunting expeditions in the North Atlantic. Almost all re-
turned home with blubber and skin from seals – the whale
oil boiled in 1767 in the local factory was from a beached
sperm whale. Only at the end of the century – in 1798 –
did two ships return home with both seals and whales. The
hunting of seals from the Wadden Sea generally ceased at
the end of the 1700s, except for the years 1853-56, when a
company on Fanø sent ships off to Greenland, but with little
success.
Seals were also hunted from the Wadden Sea’s own
coasts, but not to any great extent. Seals were generally
hunted for their blubber and skin, but unlike the catches in
the North Atlantic, the meat was also used. The seals were
killed with clubs, shot through the side of the head or caught
on hooks which were buried in the sand.
In Denmark, seals were generally considered a pest with
respect to the fishing industry, and especially when fishing
increasingly became a principal occupation at the end of
the 1800s, the fishermen’s associations sought an active
campaign against the seals. In this campaign, a subsidy was
introduced from 1889 to 1927, where a bounty was paid by
the state for every seal shot. In the Wadden Sea, where fish-
ing was not inconvenienced by seals to any great extent, the
bounty was a welcome extra income from the seal hunt.
It was legal to hunt all species of seals all year round
until 1 August 1967. The hunting act of 1967 limited hunt-
ing the common seal to the period 1 September to 31 May,
and other species – in Denmark meaning principally the grey
seal – were totally protected. The common seal was also pro-
tected in 1977. This protection reflects a radically changed
view of nature which developed during the 1900s, when ani-
mals ceased to be classified into categories such as pests and
useful animals, but were granted their own right to exist.