Belugas draw the world to Quebec’s north shore

December 23, 2009 · Filed Under Current, Lore of the Sea 

Ironically, the beluga whales that the Canadian government declared war on in the St. Lawrence estuary in the 1920s have now become a multi-million dollar industry as close to 500,000 tourists go whale watching yearly from the communities along Quebec’s North Shore.  Despite the change in attitude the damage has been done.  From a 19th-century population of some 10,000 belugas, barely 1,000 remain.

Belugas draw the world to Quebec’s north shore

In the 1920s, the Canadian government declared war on the belugas of the St. Lawrence Estuary and introduced a $15 bounty to anyone who would bring in the flukes of the small white whale.

This was a bid by fishery officials to protect fish stocks by culling the whales, which were wrongly blamed for plummeting catches by the local commercial fishery.

The government went as far as to provide a First World War ace pilot with funding and dynamite to fly over and drop homemade bombs on the pods of belugas. During the Second World War, Canadian pilots sometimes used belugas as target practice because they were so easy to spot.

By the 1950s, attitudes toward whales had begun to shift but the damage was done. From a 19th-century population of some 10,000 belugas, barely 1,000 remain.

Now, less than 30 years after the whale hunt was banned, whale-watching has become a multimillion-dollar key to the survival of numerous communities along Quebec’s North Shore.

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