British ex-whaler John Burton worked on British whaling ships in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He is attending the International Whaling Commission meeting this week to relate his experiences of life onboard a factory whaling vessel, and explain why he now supports a ban on commercial whaling. You can read his story here: "In early September of 1949, and for every day over the next two months, I turned up at the Commissioners Quay, North Shields, where the whale factory ship 'The Southern Venturer' was berthed for her summer's re-fit. Each day I made my way to the Chief Steward's cabin to enquire whether there were any vacancies for a cabin boy or mess boy.
"Finally, the magic word 'yes' was uttered and I became a fledgling whaler, ready to set sail for the Antarctic.
"In the three seasons I spent whaling, two were spent on board the factory ship and one on the whale catcher 'The Southern Truce'. At that time, I felt no sense of disgust or remorse at being a participant in the killing of hundreds of Blue, Fin, Sperm, Gray and Humpback whales. Nor did any of my shipmates, to my knowledge, ever question or criticise the economic or the (in) humane aspects as to why they were being killed in the first place.
"All we were concerned about was this: how many whales were caught that day; how many barrels of oil that represented; and how much that equated to in pounds, shillings and pence at pay-off day five months hence.
"Each day (12 hours on and 12 off throughout a 24 hour work schedule) saw every man straining against southern storms, snow pack-ice and icebergs. Those on deck stood ankle-deep in whale blood and whale bone cut into 3 foot sections, as thick as young oak trees. All around them were 6 x 3 foot squares of whale blubber, six inches thick, sliding around in the blood and manhandled by burly bearded whalers in spiked leather thigh boots gripping long hand hooks pulling them into deck quaners (the yard-wide openings in the deck leading to the boilers below) to be rendered into oil over the next 12 hour shift.
"Unseen or unheard by those on deck, wielding flence knives and operating winches or guiding band-saws cutting bone, the boilers in the factory are being emptied of the ashes that once were bones by hardened shirtless whalers with their 10 inch scoops in temperatures as high as a foundry. They are preparing room for the bones of another 90 foot, 100 ton blue whale within the hour, and no doubt praying that his shift would soon end.
"Glancing to his left, he would be aware of a constant train of moving hessian sacks, filled with meat meal having just been processed from half-ton fillets of whale. They are once again winched to the open quaners and dropped onto massive meat grinders then on to vast driers, to eventually finish up as bagged meat meal, destined as a constituent of fertiliser for farm use back in the UK. The same process applied also to some bone and to the liver. The only non-utilised parts being the balleen (plates in the mouth for sifting krill), gut and intestines.
"For four months, apart from the occasional day when bad weather prevented whaling, the whole of the fleet worked 12 hours on 12 off shifts throughout the entire period at sea. In those three seasons, I earned roughly ﾣ500, net of tax, a fortune by today's standards, bearing in mind that I would have been one of the lowest paid in the whaling fleet. Imagine what a gunner on a catcher, an engineer or a flencer would have earned in 'blood' money.
"Looking back to those days when I sailed with the whaling fleet, I am disgusted and ashamed that I ever participated in such a vile and unforgivable act of assisting in the killing of such a beautiful and intelligent animal and my remorse becomes even more poignant when I remember that not only did I participate in the killing of one whale - but of hundreds.
"Perhaps in the past, due to lack of resources, it may well have been necessary to kill whales for their valuable oils on which industry particularly depended during the war years, for example, when they were essential to the war effort and when there was very little meat to be had. But was it justified even then* Just about, maybe, but now there is no conceivable reason why the killing of whales can be justified; not on economic, research or on food supplement grounds.
"Why have I written this testimony after all these years* Well, my regret and remorse started to surface many years back and soon after the organisation Greenpeace, in their early years, startled the world with their direct action against the whaling fleets.
"It gradually dawned on me that here were human beings willing to put their lives at risk to save an animal that I had been quite prepared to participate in killing for a relatively few pound notes.
"Greenpeace has now afforded me an opportunity to expiate in some small way the guilt I have harboured all these years. It is now my intention in the future to do all I can to help Greenpeace effect the total abolition of whale-hunting worldwide."
John Burton
June 2001
The opinions noted on this page are those of John Burton and do not neccessarily reflect the position of Greenpeace
