Whales have been used by humans for centuries, primarily as a source of oil, flexible bone-like material, meat, and other raw products that once powered entire industries. Today, commercial whaling has largely ended, but whales still serve important roles in indigenous food systems, scientific research, tourism economies, and ocean ecosystems.
Whale Oil for Light and Industry
Before petroleum, whale oil was one of the most important commodities in the Western world. It fueled public and private lighting, including lighthouses, and served as a general-purpose lubricant. Sperm whale oil was especially prized because it burned clearly and brightly without smoke or odor, and it retained its lubricating qualities in extreme temperatures, making it ideal for light, rapid machinery.
During the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, whale oil found new applications in steel tempering, screw cutting, and rope manufacturing. It also continued to light the headlamps of miners well into the era of gas and electric alternatives. Whale oil had been used in medieval Europe as both an illuminant and a food source, so its industrial-era boom was really an expansion of a very old relationship between humans and whales.
Baleen: The Plastic of the 1800s
Baleen is the flexible, comb-like material that filter-feeding whales use to strain food from seawater. Made of keratin (the same protein in your fingernails and hair), it was strong, lightweight, and bendable, qualities that made it the go-to material for dozens of everyday products before plastics existed. Baleen was used to make corset stays, hoops for women’s skirts, buggy whips, carriage springs, fishing rods, umbrella ribs, parasol ribs, and frames for traveling bags, trunks, and hats. If a product needed a thin, springy strip of material that could hold its shape under stress, baleen was the answer.
Ambergris in Perfume
Ambergris is a waxy substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. In Western perfumery, it served as a fixative, a compound that prevents fragrance from evaporating too quickly. It also added a distinctive musky character that extended the bouquet of essential flower oils. Chemically, ambergris contains alkaloids, acids, and a compound called ambreine that is similar to cholesterol. It is rarely used today due to trade restrictions, and synthetic alternatives have largely replaced it.
Whale Bone as Tools and Art
Whale bone has been shaped into tools and artwork for thousands of years. Archaeological sites across the Bay of Biscay region of Europe have yielded more than 150 Late Paleolithic projectile heads and tools carved from whale bone, along with worked whale teeth. These artifacts date back to the late Pleistocene and demonstrate that even prehistoric coastal peoples recognized the material’s durability and workability. In more recent centuries, whalers developed scrimshaw, the art of carving and engraving whale bone and teeth, a tradition that continues among collectors and artisans today.
Indigenous Food and Cultural Identity
For Arctic Indigenous peoples, whales remain a critical food source. A single whale provides enough meat, blubber, and mattak (the skin with its attached layer of blubber) to contribute to a community’s diet throughout the year. Mattak is ranked among the most preferred traditional foods, with its desirability varying by species, the age of the individual whale, and the specific location on the whale’s body where it was harvested.
The significance goes well beyond nutrition. The process of hunting, butchering, sharing, and eating whale together satisfies deep psychological and spiritual needs and provides a foundation for Inuit cultural identity. This form of subsistence whaling is recognized as distinct from commercial operations and is permitted under international agreements.
Modern Whaling and Its Limits
A global moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986 after decades of overexploitation had devastated whale populations. The ban remains in place, but it is not universal. Norway formally objects to the moratorium and continues to hunt commercially. Iceland holds a reservation that allows the same. Japan conducted lethal whaling under a scientific research permit until 2019, when it withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and resumed commercial hunts in its own waters.
Some whale-derived products still appear in niche markets. Researchers have, for instance, extracted collagen from common minke whale tissue using enzyme digestion, yielding a protein structurally similar to the porcine collagen widely used in wound dressings, cosmetics, and drug delivery systems. But these applications remain small-scale and controversial, and synthetic or livestock-derived alternatives dominate the market.
Whale Watching as an Economic Engine
The most widespread modern “use” of whales is simply watching them. At least 15 million people participate in whale watching each year, generating annual revenue exceeding $2.1 billion globally and supporting an estimated 13,000 jobs. For many coastal communities that once depended on whaling, tourism has replaced harpoons as the primary economic link to whales. The industry operates in dozens of countries across every ocean, from Iceland and Norway to Australia, Mexico, and the northeastern United States.
Carbon Storage and Ocean Health
Whales play a surprisingly large role in regulating the climate. Over its lifetime, a single whale captures an average of 33 tons of carbon dioxide, locking it into its massive body. When a whale dies and its carcass sinks to the seafloor, an event known as a whale fall, that stored carbon can remain trapped in deep-ocean sediments for hundreds to thousands of years.
Whales also act as nutrient pumps. They feed at depth and defecate near the surface, redistributing iron, nitrogen, and other nutrients into sunlit waters where phytoplankton need them. Phytoplankton produce roughly half the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere and absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide, so the fertilizing effect of whale waste has outsized consequences for global carbon cycling. Rebuilding whale populations to pre-whaling numbers could meaningfully increase the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon.
Insights for Cancer and Aging Research
Bowhead whales can live over 200 years and rarely develop cancer despite having trillions of cells, a paradox that has drawn intense scientific interest. Research published in Nature found that rather than relying on extra tumor-suppressing genes, bowhead whales maintain the integrity of their DNA through unusually efficient and accurate repair mechanisms. When researchers introduced identical DNA breaks in bowhead whale, human, cow, and mouse cells, the whale cells produced the fewest large-scale errors during repair. A cold-responsive protein called CIRBP appears to contribute to this precision.
The implications are significant. Human cells require disruption of at least five protective pathways before they transform into cancer cells, while mouse cells need only two. Bowhead whales seem to have pushed this defensive architecture even further. Understanding how they achieve such reliable DNA maintenance could eventually inform new approaches to cancer prevention and treatments for age-related disease in humans.