Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

eginning of April, but since November sealing began this period accounted for only
a tenth of the catch, and from 1955 there was no autumn sealing.
The number of seals that could be taken was subject to annual revision. For many
years it was fixed at 6,000 – by ‘rule of thumb’- but in 1948 it was raised to 7,500 on
the recommendation of the Magistrate, [Fleuret] then in 1949 and 1950 to 9,000. The
1948-1950 quotas were not achieved, a warning sign. In 1951 the quota was set at
8,000, but in spite of extending the season to 25 November, the company was only
able to take 7,877, the highest annual catch under the regulations. Until 1952 the
quota was divided equally among the three divisions worked each year although the
stocks in the four (geographically defined) divisions have probably always been
unequal in size. Following my work quotas were allocated to the divisions in
proportion to my estimates size of the stocks within each (see below) and certain
other conditions were enforced.
Sealing methods in the 1950s and 1960s. Sealing methods had changed greatly since the
early days, but because of the difficult nature of the coastline and the need to come
close inshore to land on the beaches, small easily manoeuvrable vessels were always
required. In my day the Compañía Argentina de Pesca (CAP) had four sealing
vessels, all of them obsolete whale catchers, Lille Karl, Albatros, Diaz, Don Samuel and
Petrel, the latter replacing Lille Karl, originally also a whale catcher, but later a sealer
for over forty years. But Don Samuel struck a reef near King Haakon Bay and was
lost in 1951. (see chapter 15/16).
I made three adventurous sealing trips in 1951 on board the Albatros, with
Captain Ole Hauge. An experience described in chapters 15 [and 16]. The other
vessels showed small differences in sealing techniques and in the composition of
their crews. The Albatros was a steel-built oil-burning vessel, retaining traces of her
origin, such as the whaling ‘canon’ pillar in the bow. The crew, including the captain,
usually numbered sixteen, and seven of them were sealers. Each sealing trip usually
lasted about a week. The nights were usually spent in a sheltered anchorage, and
work began about 5.30 am; the working days ended about dusk, continuing through
the day as long as there were seals to be found. The sealers raised and lowered the
boats to land on the beaches and collect and raft the skins (and attached blubber) to
the ship, where other members of the crew hoisted them aboard by steam winch and
stowed them.
The seven sealers had three separate tasks: beating, flensing (removing the skin
and blubber with large knives) and hauling. The beater drove the seals backwards to
the water’s edge, by hitting them on the head with a metal tube about two metres
long. At the water’s edge the gunner shot them in the head with a large calibre rifle.
The flensers immediately started removing the blubber, in one piece from 1-7 ins [2.5
– 18 cm] thick, roughly circular with two holes where the fore-flippers had been. The
gunner and beater helped to roll the carcass over if it was particularly large. The
haulers put a rope strop through one of the flipper holes and if several seals were
killed close together the pieces were dragged into the sea and the line threaded
through these loops. The pram dinghy came in as close as possible through the surf
and the line was thrown to it and fastened. The pram was then rowed out to the
motor boat – waiting outside the surf – and the skins, which floated, towed to the
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