The blackfish, the most gregarious and one of the largest members of the porpoise family, is sometimes called the “pilot whale” because it blindly follows a leader and the herds can be driven almost like a flock of sheep.
Several species have been recognized in different oceans of the world, but the most common and widely distributed is the one called by naturalists Globicephalus melas, which occurs in great schools on both sides of the North Atlantic.
It is perhaps most abundant about the Faroe Islands north of Scotland, where the natives take advantage of its follow-the-leader habit and drive the herds into narrow fjords to be slaughtered by the hundreds and used for oil and food. These blackfish hunts of the Faroes are famous and lend a welcome touch of romance and picturesqueness to the present-day whaling which contains so little of the old-time glamour.
When a school of grind, as they are called by the Faroe men, is sighted, word is telephoned along the coast, and whether it is night or day, boats begin to assemble to surround the porpoises. The herd is slowly and quietly driven toward the mouth of the fjord which has been selected by the first boats on the scene—preferably a fjord with shallow water at the head—and as reinforcements arrive the men are arranged in definite formation by the director of the hunt.
The progress of the herd is very slow at first, about a mile an hour, but when once well within the fjord itself the boat crews close in, begin to beat the water vigorously with their oars, and to throw stones among the most backward of the school.
Perhaps the porpoises may suddenly turn and break for the open sea, and then follows a race by the outlying boats to cut them off. Instead of diving or rushing the boats which block their way, the guileless grind turn about tumultuously and once more race up the fjord. When the school is thoroughly scared, they break away again and again with a mad dash, only to be turned back by the encircling boats, until they reach the shallow water at the end of the fjord and rush far up toward the shelving shore.
As soon as they begin floundering about at the water’s edge,, a little crowd of fishermen who have been hiding behind the rocks, dash into the water and grasping the stranded whales by the fins plunge sharp knives into the necks of the struggling brutes.
Meanwhile in slightly deeper water the boatmen are spearing the porpoises not already stranded. Everywhere there is an atmosphere of carnage; the air itself becomes infected with the odor of blood. In the fjord, now stained crimson, there is a confused mass of boats and blood-splashed men wading fearlessly among the floundering whales. Some of these make mad rushes for shore, scattering groups of men bending over the stranded grind; others in their last agonies dive on the muddy bottom and, half out of water, beat the air with their great tails. The hunt may last for hours, for some of the boats chase the stragglers even out to the open sea.
A school of “blackfish” at Cape Cod. These animals often work their way into shallow water, where they are stranded by the receding tide.
A Pacific blackfish (Globicephalus scammoni). This species has no white on the under parts.
When the carnage has ended and the receding tide has left the grind high and dry upon the beach, the sheriff and his assistants count and measure the animals preparatory to allotment. Every porpoise has its special number cut into the thick blubber which covers its cylindrical head. The largest whale is given to the native who first sighted the school. One-tenth of the rest is put aside for the sheriff’s fee, taxes, and expenses; of the remainder a large proportion is allotted to the villagers living on the borders of the fjord where the kill takes place, every woman and child having a share. The total value of a catch of five or six hundred may be over $12,000.
The morning following the hunt the cutting in begins, each crew or group of villages taking, without bickering or protestation, the whales apportioned to them by the sheriff. After the blubber has been removed, the meat is carefully cut away from the skeleton, piled in neat heaps, and carried away by the women in wooden creels to their homes. All that remains to mark the scene of carnage is the white skeletons bleaching in the sun.
But blackfish are not of use to the Faroe Islanders alone, for wherever one of the old-time whaling vessels cruises for sperm whales, the green crews and gear are tried out if a school is found. And throughout the voyage when whales are scarce, few of the vessels are above “lowering” for a herd of these huge porpoises.
The common blackfish of the North Atlantic is without a trace of color above, but has a narrow line of white on the breast and belly, which widens into a fountain-jet shape on the throat. The species found on the American Atlantic coast south of New York (G. brachypterus) is black everywhere upon its body, like the blackfish of the Pacific (G. scammoni). Twenty-four feet seems to be about the maximum size of this porpoise, which in the entire family is exceeded in length only by the killer whale.
