The bloody history of whaling

After the visit at the zoological museum in Oslo I took a train to Sandefjord further west and installed me at the hotel Atlantic.

The hotel showed up to be a virtual museum of whaling as well. Sandefjord is well known as an important town during the whaling age in Norway.

Harpoons and whaling equipment at the hotel Atlantic

The whaling passway between the foajé and the dining room   

Whaling is still there

From 1850 and onwards a big number of whaling ships from Sandefjord were sealing and hunting whales in the Arctic Ocean and along the coast.

The city experienced a tremendously prosperous economical period the next 100 years and in the early 1950's the whale trade reached its climax with a big fleet of factory ships and nearly hundreds of whalers.

Waiting for the right positon for the killing shot

From the mid 1950's whaling was gradually decreasing. At this point the numbers of whales already had been reduced dramatically and the fight against whaling had increased constantly. In the late 1960's the last whaling expedition from Sandefjord occurred.

The whaling monument in Sandefjord

Beside the exhibitions in the hotel there are also a true a whaling museum in Sandefjord and a huge statue called Hvalfangstmonumentet showing whaling in action.

Although killing whales is history in Sandefjord today, whaling still exist in Norway, Iceland and Japan. The rest of the world, including me, wants to see an end of this bloody industry as soon as possible. There are several international organizations you can join in order to support the fight against whaling. Do that! Save the whales for the future!

This evening I spend at Gjennestad gartnerskole and delivered another lecture on the theme Biotope design in your garden for the garden society Staudeklubben Vestfold. It was a very cozy and well arranged meeting with a happy and interested audience. The threatened marine biotopes of the whales we never discussed however.