ak. „Whales are so abundant here", Captain Duminy wrote in his diary in 1793 after taking possession of Walvis Bay in the name of Holland. On account of the large number of whales frequenting the bay Portuguese mariners renamed the bay Bahia des Bahleas (in English: the Bay of Whales), at the end of the 16 century. When discovered in 1487 by Diaz it was named Golfo de Saint Maria da Condicao. Along the Namibian coast approximately 32 different species of dolphins, whales and porpoises have been counted. Today whales are rarely seen in these waters and even dolphins are not widespread. But what caused this dramatic change?

Looking at a broader clip of the entry in Captain Duminy‘s diary it supplies an answer to this: "I thought that the Cape would have sufficient interest in this possession, seeing that whales are so abundant here and whaling so easy, for the whole shore is strewn with a great many carcasses of all possible shapes and sizes for a distance of three miles to the south of the bay and up to the mouth of the Rhinoceros river situated four miles to the N.N.W. of the bay. The English must have carried on whaling here for several years at great cost".

Already 6000 years ago, the history of mankind and whales crossed paths as Arctic people used the bones, meat and oil of stranded whales in the kitchen. Early hunters were just as fascinated by the whales and searched out capturing methods. Soon, slow-moving Narwhale or White Whale and sometimes the Giant Bowhead which strayed too close to the shoreline were hunted in open boats and with hand-crafted spears. In the following centuries hunting methods were improved and whaling developed from a subsistence activity of the Alaskan Eskimos or the Canadian Inuit to a huge industry. During the 17 century Dutch and British followed by French and Germans started to hunt whales in the Arctic waters realising that a greater profit would be possible here more than on the French, Spanish or Portuguese coasts. During this period whalebones were used for umbrellas, whips, shoe-horns, skirt hoops, corset stays, hairbrush bristles and other dress-accessories but also whale oil was frequently required for oil lamps. The early whalers concentrated on slow-moving and inshore occurring Right Whales and Humpback Whales. With the capability of vessels sailing further offshore and a greater demands for oil arose, other species were also pursued, especially the Sperm Whale due to its oil was ideally suited for lamp oil and candles. In the 18 and 19 centuries commercial whalers from Britain and the New England coasts of the United States of America discovered not only the rich whaling grounds in the Atlantic, around the Azores, the bays of Brazil and Argentina, but also around southern Africa where the Dutch still operated from shore stations. This spreading of whalers was supported by the development of an explosive grenade harpoon and a technique for mounting it on the vessel by the American Whaler Thomas Welcome Roys as well as the replacement of sailing ships by steam-driven vessels. Due to this the whalers were able to catch the giants of the ocean faster, with greater safety and to manage to rescue the carcass by hauling in the harpoon line.

These new developments of modern whaling commenced and thus fast-moving species, such as the Rorqual Whale were hunted. Because of the thick layers of blubber of Baleen Whales which was used for producing fine lamp oil, Baleen Whales suffered most by this method of hunting. On the Namibian coast eight species of Baleen Whales were found. Because of the occurrence in offshore waters the slow-moving Southern Right Whale was in the focus of the early whalers. As the population of Southern Right Whales diminished due to excessive hunting whalers turned their attention to the Humpback Whale which appeared quite often in the off shore waters of the Central Namib coast but were more difficult to hunt. During summer this migration species stays in the krill-rich waters between South America and Antarctica returning in April or May to the Namibian coast. In the 19 century the value of four to six hundred pound of a Right Whale was between twenty and two hundred pounds sterling. Thousands of Sperm Whales were killed during the high whaling season off the Namibian coast and made up half of the total catch annually.

Quite often only a small fraction of the captured whales could be processed. According to an American Whaler working in Walvis Bay, of 23 hunted whales only two were used for processing. In all the other cases the dead whales sank to the ocean bed, the harpoon did not hold, the whale stove the vessel or the harpoon line was cut to avert this.

In 1912 a shore-based whaling station by the Walfish Bay Whaling Company Ltd. was built and the Durban Whaling Company Ltd. based their factory vessel S.S.Pentaur in the bay. Alone in 1913 approximately 510 whales, mainly Humpback Whales were processed by these two companies in Walvis Bay. Shortly afterwards another whaling station was built near Lüderitz at the Sturmvogelbucht by Germans and Norwegians. Leading whaling nations such as the United States of America and Norway executed excessive hunting even when the populations of whales decreased in 1914. American whalers killed about 21 000 Humpback Whales between 1909 and 1913 in their summer feeding areas. From the beginning of the First World War whaling populations on the Namibian coast were able to recover until the 1920s. In the early 1920s a new whaling boom was experienced on the Namibian coast. According to this development for example 63 000 pounds sterling were earned for the processing of 239 whales in Walvis Bay. After closing the whaling station at Walvis Bay in 1930 due to insufficient productivity of whaling on the Namibian coast in comparison to whaling in Antarctica, glutting whale oil markets and a collapse of oil prices, no Baleen Whale was officially hunted. However time and again whales were hunted off the Namibian coast.

Due to the cold Benguela Current, the sea around Walvis Bay is rich in fish and other marine life, but also an ideal place for whales. The cold water of the Current comes from the South Atlantic Ocean and carries nutrients from the ground of the ocean to the surface. From Lüderitz, the largest upwelling area, the nutrients are carried northwards leading to a huge area of nutrient rich waters.

It was a remarkable event in 1986 as Elly Grygier watched a whale swimming up to 100 meters near the shoreline at Walvis Bay. Fortunately in the last years whale sightings have increased. According to Mola Mola in Walvis Bay, one of the leading suppliers of boat tours, Southern Right Whales and Humpback Whales were sighted several times from June onwards during this year and even Orca Whales were seen four times last year. Also Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins, occurring near Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, as well as the Heavysides Dolphins, common in the area near Lüderitz can be seen again more often in the inshore waters of the Namibian Coast. It seems to be the first sign that the whales are coming back to Walvis Bay, albeit slowly. Today any whales, dolphins or porpoises occurring on the Namibian coast are fully protected. This makes killing them illegal and will lead to criminal prosecution.