ABSTRACT
The North Pacific right whale fishery was a remarkably short and bloody chapter in the history of whaling (Webb, 1988; Scarff, 2001). Right whaling had been conducted for centuries in the North Atlantic, and was practised in the South Pacific and South Atlantic, as well as the North Pacific, during the 19th century. The whale ships engaged were similar to those used for sperm whaling during the 19th century, and in the years immediately before and during the North Pacific right whale fishery, many of the same American vessels were also right whaling in the southwestern Pacific, as is reflected in the arrival and departure data for the Bay of Islands, New Zealand (Richards, 1992).
