Whale Hunt
Unfortunately, the human fascination with whales has its dark side. Humans have log been the whales’ number one predator. Since the 12th century, whales have been hunted by humans in huge numbers, thanks to an enormous demand for whale products. Whale oil was uused in lamps, and also to make candles, soap, cosmetics, paint, and shoe polish; baleen was used to make fishiing rods, yumbrella frames and corsets (an old type of women’s undergarment); even the whale’s skin was used to make boot laces. By as early as the 17th or 18th centuries, some whale species (such as the Atlantic Gray Whale) had already been hunted to the point of extinction. But the 19th century invention of more powerful, explosive harpoons, and the 20th century development of floating whale factories, which could process whale bodies at sea, meant that nearly all species of large whales were endangered.