List of Products Obtained from the Seas | Economic Geography

The following points highlight the four important products that are obtained from the seas. The products are: 1. Whaling 2. Sealing 3. Pearling 4. Other Marine Products.

Product # 1. Whaling:

The largest marine mammals are the whales. Commercially exploited whales are of two types, the toothed whales and the whalebone whales. The toothed whales which feed on fish, include the Sperm Whales and Killer Whales, both now very scarce, and the whalebone whales, which feed on krill (small shrimp-like animals) and plankton include the scarce Blue Whales (the largest animals on earth) and a number of smaller species such as the Humpback, Right, Fin and Sei Whales.

Whales are found chiefly in Arctic and Antarctic waters. In the nineteenth cen­tury, before petroleum had been widely exploited, whales provided the bulk of the world’s supply of lamp oil. Whale oil was extracted from their blubber or fat.

Whales were ruthlessly tracked down by vessels from Norway, Britain and America. Today the largest whaling fleets come from Japan and the U.S.S.R. Countries like Britain, South Africa, the Netherlands and finally Norway (1967) have now given up whaling.

The whales of the Arctic seas were so excessively overfished that the whaling industry shifted to the Antarctic, but here too whales are diminishing in numbers. The leading whaling area today is the north Pacific, and competition is so keen that this area, where there is little knowledge of whale numbers, is probably also being overexploited.

Modern whaling is far more efficient and far less dangerous than it was in the nineteenth century. The whales are first located by spotter aircraft or by echo- sounding equipment and fast catcher-boats with ex­plosive harpoons go out to kill the whales. The carcasses are towed to the floating factory-ship, anchored at sea, where the whales are processed.

Whale oil is still the leading product but today many other by-products are made from whales and nothing is wasted. The liver is a source of vitamins, the bones and flesh are ground up to make fertilizers and the valuable ambergris found in some whales is used for manufacturing perfumes. A small proportion of the whale-meat is consumed by people or fed to animals. The whale-oil is used for making soap, margarine, illuminants and lubricants.

In order to save whales from complete extinction, particularly the enormous Blue Whales, an Inter­national Whaling Commission was set up in 1946. The whaling nations agreed to spare female whales and their calves, so as to ensure future supplies.

Restric­tions are also imposed on the size and number of whales that can be taken. In 1948-9 a quota of 16,000 whales was set for Antarctic waters but by 1977 the total world whale catch was 15,744 whales of which 11,977 were sperm whales, and most of the remainder were the smaller Sei Whales.

While most countries find it uneconomic to continue the whaling industry and accept that further fishing will destroy the whales completely, interest in whaling in Japan and the U.S.S.R. is still great and whales are still seriously overfished.

It is clear that more stringent conservation methods should be enforced but all attempts to impose regulations are ignored by the U.S.S.R. and Japan. The U.S.S.R. caught over 8,000 whales and Japan over 5,000 in 1977. Peru was the third largest catcher with 1,200.

Product # 2. Sealing:

The seal is an amphibian that lives both on land and in the sea. It is hunted for its pelt or fur as well as for its oil. It inhabits the Arctic and Antarctic shores in large numbers, preying on fish in the water. It was so recklessly hunted in the early nineteenth century by sealers from many countries that fur-seals are now rare, except in the Bering Sea especially around Pribilof Island, off the coast of Alaska, where sealing is under government control.

But the seal herds often swim into the open oceans where they can easily be killed. The Sealing Treaty of 1911 prohibited pelagic sealing (i.e. the killing of seals at sea) and allowed only male seals to be shot. An average of about 350,000 to 400,000 seals and walruses of various types are caught annually, the main sealing nations being Canada, the U.S.A., Green­land and Norway in the northern hemisphere and South Africa and Argentina in the southern hemi­sphere.

As a result of sealing regulations, seal numbers have increased from 210,000 seals at the time of the treaty to 2,500,000 in early 1940s and more than 4 million today. This is an example of how a well- executed conservation scheme can work to preserve and multiply animal species. The walrus is of some commercial importance for its skin, ivory and fat or oil.

Product # 3. Pearling:

Pearl fishery is a form of tropical inshore fishing whose output varies tremendously from time to time. Genuine pearls are derived mainly from oysters though some species of mussels in both tropical and temperate seas may also contain pearls. If the inner surfaces of oyster shells are irritated by, for example, a small grain of sand, a kind of secretion coats the grain and eventually forms a pearl. Pearls are highly priced and are used in the jewellery in­dustry all over the world.

The world’s largest pearl is the ‘Beresford Hope pearl’, weighing over 112 grammes (4 ounces). Some of the finest pearls come from the Persian Gulf, the tropical shores of Sri Lanka, Japan, Western Australia, Queensland and northern Venezuela. Less important areas are Mexico, the Gulf of California and wherever there are coral reefs. Oysters are gathered from sea beds between 15 and 45 metres (50 and 150 ft) deep by expert divers or by oyster dredges.

Since genuine pearls are rare, a Japanese named Kokichi Mikimoto invented artificial or cultured pearls in 1913. Young oysters are first collected and into them are inserted grains of mother-of-pearl (the inner lining of oyster shells).

They are then placed in racks or wire cages and lowered into shallow coastal waters. After a period of 2 to 5 years these oysters will be re-collected and the ‘artificial pearls’ which have formed will be extracted. The centre of the Japanese pearl-culture industry is at Toba, in Ise Bay, south-eastern Honshu.

Product # 4. Other Marine Products:

In warm tropical waters and amidst coral reefs are found sponges of many shapes and sizes. They are the fibrous skeletons of marine animals that live at the bottom of shallow seas between 12 and 55 metres (40 and 180 ft). The best sponges are gathered by divers who dislodge them from the reefs. In shallow seas about 3 metres (10 ft) deep, a more economical method is by hooking, but hooks may tear the sponges.

The jelly­like body is removed from the gathered sponges which are then thoroughly dried. Large well-shaped sponges are soft and highly absorbent and are used mostly as bathing sponges but also for making cushions and in paint works. The bulk of the world’s natural sponges come from Key West, off Florida, and from the West Indian islands.

Sponges are also gathered from the coastal waters of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Seas, the Red Sea and the South Pacific islands. Sponges are farmed in some places around the Gulf of Mexico. Seed sponges are tied to weights and lowered to the shallow sea-beds. When they become large enough they are hooked up for sale. Sponges are not so important as they once were be­cause of the development of foamed plastics and rub­ber which can be cheaply and economically produced.

Seaweeds of many species are gathered in the seas either for consumption as a relish in soup or for feeding animals. But their greatest use is in industry for making gelatine, glue, paints, iodine and cosmetics. Seaweed makes a valuable fertilizer when spread on the fields as it is in Japan and in Brittany, France.

Few countries have taken to commercial cultivation of seaweeds except Japan, where farmers grow them in wooden racks, periodically submerged in water. There is a great future in this branch of marine activity.