The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
In the 1930-31 Antarctic season 29,410 blue whales are killed - the highest single-season blue whale catch ever recorded. Forty-one factories with about 200 catchers are operating and world production reaches around 3.6 million barrels of oil, more than the market can absorb; most Antarctic companies declare a whaling holiday the following season and production collapses to about 775,000 barrels. The peak is bounded by the oil price, not by the whales.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia) · species · Southern Ocean and adjacent temperate South Atlantic, Indian and Pacific sectors · not located
- Stern-Slipway Pelagic Factory Ship · technology system · Antarctic pelagic whaling grounds · not located
- Southern Ocean · maritime region · Circumpolar, south of roughly 40°S · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Modern whaling: the stern slipway, the factory ship and the 1930/31 Antarctic peak
The stern slipway, patented in 1922, was first taken to the Antarctic grounds in the factory ship Lancing in 1925, allowing whales to be hauled aboard and flensed in open water and beginning pelagic Antarctic whaling in earnest. In the 1930-31 season 29,410 blue whales were killed in the Antarctic, the highest single-season blue whale catch on record, with 41 factories and about 200 catchers operating and world production reaching about 3.6 million barrels; most Antarctic companies then declared a whaling holiday and production fell to about 775,000 barrels in 1931-32. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary; the sources retrieved render the patent holder's name inconsistently and no inventor is asserted.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, whaling article; with the Northern Mariner study of factory-ship design · accessed 2026-08-08 · Partly verified
https://www.britannica.com/topic/whaling/Modern-whaling ; https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol08/nm_8_1_21-37.pdf
Recorded on Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)
- Whaling begins at Grytviken, South Georgia
- The factory ship Lancing takes a stern slipway south
- The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
- The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
- Soviet fleets take protected whales and file false returns
- Whaling ends at South Georgia
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
- CCAMLR is agreed at Canberra
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
- The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is adopted
- A long-term decline in krill density is linked to winter sea ice
- Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages
- CCAMLR adopts the Ross Sea marine protected area
- Blue whales are found back at South Georgia
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
- The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data
- Antarctic sea ice reaches a record low, a year after the previous one
- Antarctic meltwater is projected to slow the abyssal cell
- A physics-based early warning signal is proposed
- A capture-recapture abundance estimate for Antarctic blue whales is published
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- An individual Antarctic blue whale is re-sighted at South Georgia · 2026
- A capture-recapture abundance estimate for Antarctic blue whales is published · 2025
- A physics-based early warning signal is proposed · 2024-02
- The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data · 2023
- Antarctic sea ice reaches a record low, a year after the previous one · 2023-02
- Antarctic meltwater is projected to slow the abyssal cell · 2023
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens · 2021-11
- Blue whales are found back at South Georgia · 2020-02