Whale products: oil, spermaceti, baleen, ambergris

Before petroleum and plastics, the whale was a major industrial resource. Its oil lit the cities, its spermaceti made the finest candles, its baleen served as a flexible “plastic” for corsets and umbrellas, and its ambergris was worth more than gold in perfumery.

Understanding these uses means understanding why whaling was so intense and came close to wiping out several species. The widget above sets out each product, from light to perfume.

From the whale trade to the 1986 moratorium

For three centuries, demand for oil, spermaceti and baleen pushed several species to the brink of extinction. The right whale owes its name to its commercial value: it was the right whale to hunt, slow and floating once dead, the ideal target for whalers.

The arrival of petroleum (from 1859), of electricity and then of plastics gradually made these products obsolete. Combined with the collapse of the stocks, that shift prepared the ground for the moratorium on commercial whaling adopted by the International Whaling Commission in 1982 and effective in 1986.

Going further: consult the whaling statistics, the history of whaling and the skeletons kept in museums.