NZ whalers harpoon their last victim

More than 170 years of New Zealand whaling history came to a close when J.A. Perano and Company caught its last whale off the coast near Kaikōura.

Dunedin-born Joe Perano had started whaling out of Tory Channel in the Marlborough Sounds in 1911, beginning a 53-year family business. He was credited with bringing many modern innovations to the New Zealand whaling industry: he constructed this country’s first power-driven whale chaser, was the first operator to use explosive harpoons, introduced the electric harpoon, and in 1936 equipped his whale chasers, mother ship and shore stations with radio telephones.

Joe Perano died in 1951, aged 74. In 1964 the business was being run by his sons, Gilbert and Joseph. The whale they killed on 21 December was the last to be harpooned in New Zealand waters from a New Zealand-owned ship. Wellington Head, a steep headland on Arapawa Island north of Tory Channel that stands sentinel over the waters in which Joe Perano and two of his sons whaled for more than half a century, was renamed Perano Head in 1969.

Image: South seas whaling painting detail