Whales – Once Hunted, Now Revered

Whales provide a thrill every time they are sighted in Metis. The giant creatures are mostly furtive and their appearance is occasional, but there is little to match the excitement of a whale breaching offshore.

Hunting whales was one of the privileges reserved for the seigneur. But John Macnider gave them little attention. He had more success with salmon and herring. Whales were however blamed in 1832 for the demise of Macnider’s fishery.

The fish in this part of the River St. Lawrence has been found to be capricious in its haunts; perhaps annoyed by the small whales and porpoises which abound.

Beluga whales were often hunted not for their commercial value, but simply to rid the St. Lawrence of what the commercial fishery considered to be a pesky predator. A bounty was paid to cod fishermen to empty the river of them. They almost succeeded. Local fishermen took part in the needless slaughter. A 1934 article from Le Progrès du Golfe celebrated the capture in Metis of 24 whales, killed with a gun in just two days of hunting.

It was only in 1939 that the bounty was abandoned when the first scientific study of the beluga revealed that these diminutive whales feed largely on smaller fish, species like Capelin and American sand lance, that have little or no commercial value. Today the beluga in the St. Lawrence is on the brink of extinction, their declining numbers barely sufficient to sustain the genetic diversity of the population.