OK.
Williams, what are you talking about?Try this. In 1846, there were 735 U.S. whaling ships, 80 percent of the world's whaling fleet. American whalers killed an average of 15,000 whales per year, mostly to produce oil for lamps. By the time whaling dropped off, toward the end of the century, there were only 50,000 whales alive. Had whaling continued, there would be no whales today.
So, who was responsible for saving the whale from extinction? Was it Greenpeace? No, it was multimillionaire David Rockefeller, who successfully marketed kerosene, which took over the illumination market. Later, Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb ran both whale oil and kerosene out of the illumination market.
1910 -- 12,301 1920 -- 11,369 1930 -- 39,300 1940 -- 37,709 1950 -- 45,060 1960 -- 63,616 1970 -- 42,254 1980 -- 3,401 1990 -- 655 2000 -- 1,343