6. Review of Previous Season's Catch

(from "Chairman's Report of the Sixteenth Meeting")


Mr. Vangstein in his review of the year's whaling statistics said that this time the Antarctic figures were available for the start of the meeting of the Commission's Scientific Committee. Outside the Antarctic, however, some of the biggest whaling countries did not send in their returns until April-May - about six months after the end of the season. This gave the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics a lot of work to do in a short time and Mr. Vangstein appealed to all Commissioners to send in their returns as soon as possible after the close of operations.

The catch outside the Antarctic in 1963 was greater than that made in the Antarctic season 1963/64, the largest component in the former catch being 18,300 whales taken by seven pelagic expeditions and twenty land stations operating in the North Pacific. In the Antarctic sixteen expeditions had caught approximately 8,500 blue whale units whilst the blue whale unit limit had been 10,000. The average catch per catcher day was down by 18 per cent. These pelagic expeditions also caught about 10,300 sperm whales, of which approximately 3,600 were taken on the voyage to and from the Antarctic.

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