Historical State of Sperm Whales

Historically, sperm whale populations have been heavily impacted by whaling. Before the 18^th century, Sperm Whales were hunted in Japan and Indonesia. By the 1740s, US vessels had begun to take Sperm Whales. Sperm whaling increased until the mid 19^th century and developed from small sloops to large ships. It began to decline when petroleum jelly began to replace spermaceti (whale oil). Whaling increased once again after World Water II as Sperm Whale products were commonly used in cosmetics, soaps and machine oil. This led the population of Sperm Whales to fall significantly. In 1988, the International Whaling Commission banned the killing of Sperm Whales. Today, Sperm Whales are only hunted by hunters from two Indonesian Villages.

Before commercial whaling, the worldwide Sperm Whale population was estimated to be 1,100,000. By 1880, it fell to approximately 29%. From then to 1946 it began to recover due to reduced pressure, however, following WWII, when Sperm Products began to become popular again, the population declined to about 33% - about 770,000 were killed. Today, the Sperm Whale Population is recovering slowly worldwide Estimates for the abundance of Sperm Whales in the North Pacific – including Los Angeles – are unreliable.  They range from a couple of hundreds to thousands. In 1994, Barlow estimated that there were about 756 in California coastal waters.