Nowhere more evident is the suppression of whaling than in Tasmania where Greens Senator Brown is leading the assault on the Japanese and the PR campaign to make champions out of Sea Shepherd. The Greens gave the Sea Shepherd activists a hero’s welcome as they entered the Port of Hobart once the home of more than 30 whaling boats registered and many more international boats bringing the whale oil back for processing.

In 1804, the year Hobart was founded there was a seasonal abundance of whales and its proximity to the Pacific whaling grounds, the new colony was ideally placed to produce whale oil; in demand in Britain for street lighting and industrial processes. Whalebone from 'baleen' whales was also utilised in the women's fashion industry (essential products unlike food). Bay whaling commenced almost upon settlement with whales harpooned in sight of the main street, and then at whaling stations established in the bays of the south east.

Tasmania's first shore-based whaling station was established at Ralph's Bay in 1805. Today the greens have run a five year campaign to ‘Save Ralph’s Bay” from a proposed housing estate, but no mention of the whaling.

Nor at Recherche Bay another major whaling area, many may remember the 2005 campaign by Senator Brown to save the ‘virgin’ forests of the bay, but the national media failed to mention whaling.
Recherché Bay operated up to five whaling stations from the 1830 to 1870s, only stopping when the whale species that used to visit our shores went locally extinct.
An early visitor to Recherché Bay, George Robinson in 1833, noted that ‘upward of 100 whales’ had been caught and the shoreline was ‘strewn with the putrid carcasses and bones of the whale’ he saw the ‘numerous huts and iron pots’ used to ‘boil or try out’ the whale oil. One such whaling station was located on the NE peninsula at Sullivan Point. Oil casks were made from Tasmanian timber; the try pots used local wood as fuel.

This forest on private land is now on the Australian Heritage List for its pristine values.

Don't forget the sea-cow or dugong.
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/about_us/great_barrier_reef_outlook_report/outlook_report/evidence/01_standard_evidence_page48

Greg I think comparing slavery to whaling is a bit rich.
By the way, I’m proud of our aboriginal whalers, and they also deserve a special mention.

Ben-Peter, do you have any evidence for anybody removing references
to whaling from text books? There is a whole museum devoted
to whaling at Albany in WA. My only complaint is that,
for the most part, it paints
the whole vicious atrocity as a boys-own adventure.

Hugoagogo: Do you know how little food the entire aquatic
products section of the food system provides? Check it out. It's
about 1% of global calories ... we are fishing our way down
ocean food chains, extincting species, destroying
mangroves ... all for this trifling return. The readers of OLO
who eat imported prawns may like to ask what responsibility they
share in the deaths of 146,000 people in 2008 when cyclone
Nargis devastated Burma, largely because the mangroves that
used to protect the coast line had been replaced by
prawn farms to meet the strong international demand by
people who don't think much about the consequences of their
food choices.

P.S. Aquaculture is a NET consumer of fish ... sorry for the pun :)