Tony Dickinson was the last man to be employed as Sealing Inspector and Biologist on South Georgia. He is thus one of the few living links with the now-extinct industry that exploited southern seals over a period of two centuries. He subsequently taught at Memorial University, of Newfoundland, where he continued his interest in the history of sealing and whaling. Doctoral research at Cambridge, and the Scott Polar Research Institute in particular, gave Dickinson the opportunity to consult extensive archives on sealing in the Falkland Islands and its Dependencies. This small book is based on Dickinson's unpublished PhD thesis.
At the start, a clearer explanation of the geographical extent of the Falkland Islands Dependencies would help readers unfamiliar with the region. The Dependencies were defined in Letters Patent of 1908 to include South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, and ‘the territory known as Graham's Land’ — now the Antarctic Peninsula. With minor changes in overall extent, this definition lasted until the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, when ‘islands and territories’ south of 60°S (including the South Orkneys and South Shetlands) became British Antarctic Territory. Then, in 1985, the remaining Dependencies of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands became a territory separate from the Falklands, so there are now no Dependencies of the Falkland Islands. This book covers the Dependencies as defined in the 1908 Letters Patent.
The history of sealing is very similar to that of whaling, in which a new stock was discovered and developed with good profits, but was quickly overexploited to the point of collapse, and then largely abandoned. Sealing started in the Falkland Islands as a sideline to whaling in the second half of the eighteenth century and progressed to South Georgia after 1786, the delay following Captain Cook's 1777 report of the abundance of seals on the island being due to the American War of Independence. The discovery of the South Shetlands by William Smith in 1819 transferred the sealers’ attention from South Georgia to stocks farther south.
One year after the discovery of the South Shetlands, at least 47 British and American vessels were sealing in the South Shetlands. But by the following season, many vessels were already returning practically empty. Sporadic sealing continued on South Georgia and elsewhere in the Dependencies through the nineteenth century, and the last old-time sealer and whaler was the brig Daisy, which visited South Georgia in 1912–13.
The sealers’ quarry was the southern elephant seal, which was taken for its high quality oil, and the South American fur seal of the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic fur seal of the Dependencies, which were taken for their fine pelts. The valuable, easily processed, fur seals were the main quarry, while elephant sealing, which required the setting-up of tryworks, was often of secondary importance. I would have been interested to see an analysis of the changing values of the two types of seals as markets and economic conditions changed.
Several sealers and explorers visiting the region commented on the unsustainability of an industry in which all adult seals were slaughtered and their offspring left to starve. James Weddell wrote in 1825 that ‘. . .the fur seal might. . .have been spared to render annually 100,000 furs for many years to come. This would have followed from not killing the mothers till the young were able to take the water; and even then, only those which appeared old, together with a proportion of the males. . .’
As fur seal stocks at South Georgia dwindled in the nineteenth century, sealers took increasing numbers of elephant seals. When shore whaling began at Grytviken in 1904–1905, elephant sealing started again as a sideline. It was a very cost-effective operation that yielded around 2,000 tons per year of an oil equal to the best whale oil, and it became increasingly important to the profitability of Grytviken. In the early 1960s, before Grytviken closed, seal oil accounted for nearly one-third of total oil production.
In a bid to prevent a recurrence of the earlier overexploitation of fur and elephant seals, the Falkland Islands Government issued the Seal Fishery (Consolidation) Ordinance in 1909. Elephant sealing was regulated by dividing the coastline of South Georgia into four sectors, each of which was allotted a quota of 2,000 seals. Only three divisions would be worked each year, in rotation, and the fourth was left undisturbed. There was a close season for breeding and there were also four reserves where seals were fully protected. An important part of this management plan was that only male seals could be killed. However, the population dwindled and, in 1952, the quota was reduced. The population soon rose again and sealing was then managed on a sustainable basis until Grytviken whaling station closed in 1964–1965 (and Dickinson's employment was terminated).
There is an emphasis on sealing in the Falkland Islands, with three chapters being devoted solely to this area. This is a subject that is less well-known in popular accounts than the short-lived slaughters in South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands, and it included a pelagic hunt for fur seals. Unfortunately, the method of hunting at sea is not described. As an interesting sideline for fans of Shackleton's expeditions, Frank Worsley, the captain of Endurance and Quest, applied for a sealing licence and permission to use Discovery as his sealing vessel. Both were refused, but Worsley then set up British Sealing Industries Ltd, which never went into operation.
The final chapter, ‘Aftermath,’ discusses developments since the 1960s. Seal populations are flourishing, and fur seals have recovered from near extinction to an amazing abundance at South Georgia and growing populations elsewhere. They could support a sustainable industry, and there are suggestions that a cull would not come amiss before they seriously hamper the flourishing cruise ship industry. However, given the widespread antipathy to killing seals and the wearing of furs, it is likely that fur seals will be left to swarm undisturbed.
Dickinson has amassed under one cover a huge amount of information, often from obscure sources, on one of the more discreditable episodes of human involvement in the Falkland Islands Dependencies. As such, the book will be a valuable reference, but it shows the hallmarks of being hastily compiled. The combined chronological and geographical organisation is not easy to follow, and the amount of detail on individual sealing expeditions cries out for overviews to put them into perspective.
