Fur seal at Grytviken, South Georgia

NE00453

Fur seal at Grytviken, South Georgia

Feb/Mar 1998

Grytviken, South Georgia, fur seal feeding its pup in foreground.
Grytviken was the original South Georgia whaling station and was the only whaling station on South Georgia that wasn't dismantled by 1988. Captain Carl Larsen, a whaling entrepreneur, founded it in 1904. It was worked continuously from then until 1962 by an Argentinian company by the name of Argentina de Pesca, now known as Albion Star. Grytviken had its own special business in that they had the sole licence for catching sea elephants. There was a set limit of 6000 bulls per year, and at a yield of two barrels of oil per sea elephant, this gave a potential yield of 12,000 barrels, a useful addition to their whaling take.

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