Not to Entangle a Right Whale

            The right whale is so named because it is the right one to hunt as it often swims close to shore and is quite docile, not afraid of approaching boats, and floats when killed. As such, right whales have been hunted nearly to extinction and are classified as endangered by the entanglement of fishing nets and lobster traps, as illustrated.

            The right whale is the second largest whale in the world, next to the blue whale in size, and both are on display at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Right whales were first sighted along the New England coast by Pilgrims on the Mayflower, even before they landed at Plymouth in 1620. In the years to follow, the first settlers along the Long Island coastline reported Indians hunting right whales with harpoons made of whalebone and tied with a rope made of strips of tree bark.

            Native American Montauk and Shinnecock tribes both shared in the rise of so-called offshore whaling. The coastline industry peaked there in the year 1726 when 86 right whales were harvested in the sound and shipped to Boston.

            In Puritan religion, whaling on the Sabbath was not permitted and those sighted on Sunday could not be harvested.

            Right whales were often found beached after a storm, and one-third of the monetary take from such a find went to the person who found it; one-third went to the town, and one-third went to the church.

            When the Dutch took over New York from the English, the government decreed that the growing whaling income should be taxed and paid to the Chamber of Commerce. However, the whaler’s local representative, Samuel Mulford, strongly objected, and he went to London in both 1704 and 1706 to plead that King James give perpetual rights to fish coastal waters without interference.

            My wife, Jan, is descended from Mulford on her mother’s side of the family. Although he appeared before the House of Lords dressed as a humble plainspoken commoner, he won his case. The offshore industry continued to be lucrative for residents. However, in 1712, Captain Christopher Hussey, a whaler out of New Bedford, was blown far out to sea and discovered a pod of sperm whales, which would revolutionize and relocate the industry to the island of Nantucket.

            It also turns out that the first lighthouse keeper there was Richard Pinkham, my wife Jan’s paternal great, great, grandfather. Consequently, his name is mentioned amongst Nantucket’s history and heritage with other family names such as Coffin, Macy, Starbuck, and Folger.

            Richard Pinkham was also the first to chart Nantucket waters and mark the channels through shoals and sandbars that would allow ships to enter with barrels of spermaceti from the sperm whale, which was worth its weight in silver, and which would eventually light up the world as candlewax.

            Today only about 400 right whales are left in the world, and every year the number of right whales decreases from entanglements with fishing nets and lines from lobster traps. Right whales are dying faster than they can reproduce. A bipartisan bill just passed in Congress on October 18 entitled “Save Right Whales Act” that would provide funding for conservation and research, and a firm called Ashored Innovations in Nova Scotia has also devised a rope-less lobster trap. Both are steps in the right direction for the hope of the right whale, and hopefully will save it from extinction.

By George B. Emmons

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