Townsend Whaling Charts

The Atlantic Ocean was completely fished out of Sperm Whales by the beginning of the 1800's, so these maps that date back before those times are interesting. Our oceans must have been filled with whales before "we" came along.

The 4 charts show the locations of over 50,000 captures of 4 whale species; sperm whales (36,908), right whales (8,415), humpback whales (2,883) and bowhead whales(5,114). Capture locations were transcribed from North American (“Yankee”) pelagic whale vessel log books dating from 1761 to 1920 and plotted onto nautical charts in a Mercator projection by a cartographer.

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