Whaling in New Zealand

There is now an established industry for whale watching based in the South Island town of Kaikōura and at other ports in New Zealand.

Missionary John Brumby in Marlborough in 1838, found the whalers to be "rogues and outlaws unrestrained by any law"[5] Other contemporary observers had differing views.

In 1839, Edward Wakefield, who later became a member of parliament in Britain, described shore whalers as having a dark side to their character but they were "frank and hospitable".

By the 1830s most whaling, apart from American ships, was done from shore bases with mixed crews of Māori and European sailors.

On Banks Peninsula the first shore was at Little Port Cooper in 1836 and by 1842 there were a total of five stations,[8] including Oashore Bay, Ikoraki and Peraki.

[15] In 2010, Pete Bethune, an antiwhaling activist, was detained by Japanese whalers when he boarded a whaling ship in the southern oceans.