Right whales
Southern right whales were the primary early shore-whaling targets because their migration and calving brought them near shore.
The historical record
Shore-whaling crews in Cook Strait pursued whales that came close enough to land for small open boats to reach them. Southern right whales were particularly vulnerable because their seasonal movements brought them into sheltered coastal waters.
At Kāpiti, the industrial record includes quantities of black oil and whalebone. In 1839, six stations and 23 boats produced 466 tuns of black oil, excluding tonguers’ oil. Such production was part of the wider nineteenth-century pressure on whale populations.
The local industry contracted dramatically during the 1840s. The historical production figures establish the scale and speed of that change, although the causes of the decline are best understood alongside wider regional whaling records.
Historical source: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti chapter, pp. 83–97; drawing on Dieffenbach, Wakefield, contemporary station records and archaeological surveys.