Bill Dawbin, Tasman Diplomacy, and the Great South Pacific Humpback Collapse of 1959–62

Abstract

ABSTRACT The history of industrial whaling in Oceania, along with crucial moments in the diplomatic histories of Australia and New Zealand, sometimes turned on questions of whale behaviour. So did individual human lives. This article puts together the histories of whale communities and the history of cetacean science in order to unravel the meaning of some key moments in the environmental history of the South Pacific, including Oceanian attempts to increase their share of post-war whaling and the subsequent great humpback whale collapse of 1960–62. In the middle of these histories were the efforts of cetologist Bill Dawbin to understand humpback whale migrations in the late 1950s. Interwoven throughout was the crucial fact of humpback whales’ historical split into several different populations and their migratory choices, and the difficulties humans face in understanding these complex and mobile creatures.