Primal Whaling

[Superfluous Crow]

So, one of my cultures-in-the-works live in an arctic climate but have an advanced society, and therefore they require a lot of food. My solution was (partly) giant whales (Bulkwhales), but then i arrive at another problem: how the hell do you hunt these things?
Hunting whales of somewhat large sizes can be accomplished with modern equipment, but how could a somewhat more primitive culture do it? Just hunting for stranded whales seems somewhat boring, with luring them to shallow waters being slightly more interesting (but what would the bait be?). Other possible solutions could be harpooning them with floaters and then killing it, or "boarding" it and killing it up close somehow. Or maybe you could kill it with an entire fleet of whaling ships somehow?
Another alternative could be using electrified bathyspheres, but another culture has a monopoly on electrical sciences, so although awesome it would be hard to rationalize in my current framework.
Also, how much food would you get from a blue whale? I'm expecting Bulkwhales to be larger, but a comparison of some sort would be nice.
Hope some of you guys have inside knowledge of killing marine mammals to extinction :P  

[Elemental_Elf]

I hope your people's whaling careers go better than the crew of the Essex's careers...

Just some ideas, facts and questions:
 
IIRC, the way American Whalers killed their prey was to harpoon it in the blowhole and let the whale die an agonizing death while the it bled out.

Whaling is extremely difficult, not only for the dangers involved in the actual killing of the great beast but in that so much of your ship's stores must be dedicated to transporting meat. Have you considered the manner in which you are going to keep this meat fresh on the long voyages? Heck, even short voyages run the risk of spoiling... I suppose you could just have a Cleric cast 'purify food and drink' on the meat when it comes ashore...

Perhaps and easier way to kill the beast and get it back to shore would be to use a teleportation spell... But to carry the weight of a Blue Whale you'd prolly need an epic level Mage, which wouldn't be too common. Perhaps your harpoons could have a magic spell/rune/what-have-you that allows the caster to negate a certain percentage of the weight; each harpoon's effect would stack, meaning the more harpoons, the easier it would be for a Mage to do his duty... That would be cool in that you could (with enough harpoons) teleport a whale onto land and let it die like a beached whale (if you were cruel) or go in for the kill with some powerful barbarians.

Have you considered Penguins? Seems to me, with a lot of effort, you could at least partially domesticate them. Penguins would provide the populous with eggs, meat and a water-proof material/fur. This might be a great way to supplement the whaling and ensure whole villages will not starve if the whalers return empty handed.

[limetom]

The Eskimo-Aleutian peoples hunted whales just fine.  Even before white people came to the Arctic.  Even before they had metal.  They did, of course, hunt seals and other smaller creatures more often, but they were more than capable of whaling, even with such "primitive" technology has hand-thrown harpoons and oar-powered canoes.

One tactic was basically to gang up on a whale with a lot of guys throwing a lot of harpoons from a lot of boats.  Others involved getting them from shore.

This page does a much more through job than me at explaining.

[Elemental_Elf]

... even with such "primitive" technology has hand-thrown harpoons and oar-powered canoes.

Ironically, Europeans/Americans hunted their prey in small 20 foot oar powered boats and used hand thrown harpoons to kill the whales. Really the only difference was that the Europeans would drag the carcass back to the ship, tie it down and strip mine it for oil.

*please note I am talking about whaling in the 1820's

[Superfluous Crow]

Hmm, but that site details relatively small whales (well, not quite, but smaller than blue whales), so how many of those tactics would work sufficiently against large enemies?
Would the whale stay afloat by itself? Otherwise the major problem to me seems to be to ensure that it doesn't dive away. Would crippling its blowhole keep it above waters? can't really think how you'd cripple it enough to make it non-functional.

[Elemental_Elf]

Hmm, but that site details relatively small whales (well, not quite, but smaller than blue whales), so how many of those tactics would work sufficiently against large enemies?
Would the whale stay afloat by itself? Otherwise the major problem to me seems to be to ensure that it doesn't dive away. Would crippling its blowhole keep it above waters? can't really think how you'd cripple it enough to make it non-functional.

I believe the body does float, so the biggest concern the whalers would have is how to keep it stationary and/or how to transport the whale.

Also, don't forget Sharks would be of particular concern, most especially if the whale is intended for food.

[Superfluous Crow]

Don't most polar shark-things live somewhat deep underwater? Seems to me that sharks are mostly seen in tropical areas? Of course there are still orcas and such, but i don't think that they scavenge.

[Elemental_Elf]

Don't most polar shark-things live somewhat deep underwater? Seems to me that sharks are mostly seen in tropical areas? Of course there are still orcas and such, but i don't think that they scavenge.

Hmm, that is true.

[Llum]

I believe the body does float, so the biggest concern the whalers would have is how to keep it stationary and/or how to transport the whale.

They sink first down to a boyant area (or the ocean floor), then start floating a bit later after they decompose a bit, iirc

I believe Polar sharks come to the surface to feed on animals that come to the surface, ether during the day/night because there's more food closer to the surface.

[Stargate525]

Well, I've got two suggestions.

One, you could use crossbows. Primitive technology (relatively speaking), high power, and a large range. Mount a couple of these to a deep breakwater or similar dropoff, tie down the bolts to said shore, and fire away.

Second, you could train marine wildlife. Just like dogs, aquatic mammals are very intelligent and social creatures. We in reality have already done this with Shamu and friends who will jump through hoops for us for a bit of fish. I see no reason why a concentrated effort to train them to bring in a whale wouldn't work.

[brainface]

well, not quite, but smaller than blue whales)

everything[/i]'s smaller than blue whales. Every living animal that every was. =D

(this unhelpful comment brought to you by the brain)

Seriously though, outside of wanting your whales to be awesome (a valid reason for sure don't get me wrong), making them bigger than bluewhales is maaybe overkill. Like, that's 190 tons of animal, according to wikipedia. Even if only 1/4 that is edible that is approximately 380,000 1/4 pounder whale-burgers.

[Elemental_Elf]

Seriously though, outside of wanting your whales to be awesome (a valid reason for sure don't get me wrong), making them bigger than bluewhales is maaybe overkill. Like, that's 190 tons of animal, according to wikipedia. Even if only 1/4 that is edible that is approximately 380,000 1/4 pounder whale-burgers.

The next calculation would be calculating how many people the whale is intended to feed. If its a small village then hell they're set for a long while, but larger communities will need more meat. So the interesting figure is how many Whales must the natives kill to feed everyone for a year?

The average human would need something like 1400 calories a day to live. A pound of Boiled Silverside (Lean Only) Steak (assuming Whale and cow are similar, this could be off by a lot) would yield (roughly) 437.5 calories. So to subsist on the whale a person would need to eat 3 pounds of the meat each day (assuming there is nothing else supplementing the whale).

Assuming a town's population to be 1000 people, the community would consume 3,000 pounds per day, far below the 95,000 pounds derived from a single whale (380,000 1/4 pounds = 95,000 pounds). With this we can see that a single Whale could yield enough food to feed the town for a little over 31 days.

Of course Eskimos made soups out of the blood and meat of seals, so I assume a human would need much less than 3 pounds per day. Further, I'm sure the natives would also supplement their diet with fish, birds and other mammals (like seals), so the survival of the entire community/nation is not solely dependent upon the hunting of whales.

 [spoiler= I fail at math...]

Seriously though, outside of wanting your whales to be awesome (a valid reason for sure don't get me wrong), making them bigger than bluewhales is maaybe overkill. Like, that's 190 tons of animal, according to wikipedia. Even if only 1/4 that is edible that is approximately 380,000 1/4 pounder whale-burgers.

The next calculation would be calculating how many people the whale is intended to feed. If its a small village then hell they're set for a long while, but larger communities will need more meat. So the interesting figure is how many Whales must the natives kill to feed everyone for a year?

The average human would need something like 1400 calories a day to live. A pound of Boiled Silverside (Lean Only) Steak (assuming Whale and cow are similar, this could be off by a lot) would yield (roughly) 437.5 calories. So to subsist on the whale a person would need to eat 3 pounds of the meat each day (assuming there is nothing else supplementing the whale).

Assuming a town's population to be 1000 people, the community would consume 1,312,500 pounds per day which well more than the 380,000 yielded from a single whale.

Of course Eskimos made soups out of the blood and meat of seals, so I assume a human would need much less than 3 pounds per day. Further, I'm sure the natives would also supplement their diet with fish, birds and other mammals (like seals), so the survival of the entire community/nation is not solely dependent upon the hunting of whales. [/spoiler]

[Nomadic]

Don't most polar shark-things live somewhat deep underwater? Seems to me that sharks are mostly seen in tropical areas? Of course there are still orcas and such, but i don't think that they scavenge.

All meat eaters scavenge.

[Polycarp]

All meat eaters scavenge.

This isn't exactly on topic, but cheetahs don't scavenge.  At least, that's what I learned from Nature.

[Nomadic]

All meat eaters scavenge.

This isn't exactly on topic, but cheetahs don't scavenge.  At least, that's what I learned from Nature.

Any meat eater that gets hungry enough will scavenge.