Earlier today I gave a lecture at the Bonehenge Whale Center’s Whales and Whaling Symposium that is held every year at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, N.C.

My lecture was titled “Nye’s Clock Oil and the Bottlenose Dolphin Fishery at Hatteras Island.”

The photograph above was one of the illustrations that I used in my lecture. It shows one of crews that was hunting bottlenose dolphins on Hatteras Island in or about the winter of 1907-1908.

This crew worked for the William F. Nye Co., of New Bedford, Mass., which at that time was the world’s leading maker of a group of precious, highly specialized whale and dolphin oils uniquely suited for lubricating clocks, watches, chronometers, scientific instruments, and other delicate machinery.

The company obtained those oils from the heads of bottlenose dolphins, pilot whales, belugas, and other small, toothed whales.

These special oils were not found in their blubber, but in two anatomical structures that were involved in echolocation– that is, in the animals’ ability to hunt, navigate, and generally “see” underwater by emitting sound waves and interpreting the echoes of those sounds after they are reflected off objects in their proximity.

Specifically, the William F. Nye Co.’s “oilers”  extracted those oils from the fatty tissues in the animals’ lower jawbones and from an organ in their foreheads that is called the “melon.” 

The company refined those oils at its factory in New Bedford and at an auxiliary facility in St. Albans, Vermont.

Between the Civil War and 1900,  the William F. Nye Co. had acquired its supply of those oils largely from pilot whale strandings (some accidental, some provoked) on Cape Cod and Long Island, and from a variety of Canadian whalers operating on the St. Lawrence River.

To establish a more stable supply of those oils, William F. Nye’s son Joseph came south to Hatteras Island and established the bottlenose dolphin fishery there in 1907. He recruited local fishermen and seafarers, many of whom had been involved in earlier bottlenose fisheries on Hatteras.

Hatteras Island was the site of the oldest and longest running bottlenose dolphin fishery in North America. At the National Museum of Natural History’s Paleobiology Archive, I found records indicating that there had been a commercial bottlenose dolphin fishery there on and off since at least 1851.

To oversee the Hatteras fishery, Joseph Nye employed a third-generation Hatteras oiler, William C. Rollinson.

Rollinson had been involved in hunting bottlenose dolphins most of his life, as had his father and grandfather before him.

His father, John W. Rollinson, had been superintendent of a bottlenose dolphin fishery at Hatteras that had been operated by a company based in Wilmington, Delaware, between 1885 and 1892.

Even further back in time, his grandfather had been captain of a bottlenose dolphin crew at Hatteras Island before the Civil War.

It was hard, dirty work, and when I was younger, and some of the workers were still alive, they described it as a very grim business, the kind of job that one only did if there was no other way to make a living. But that was often the case on Hatteras Island in those days.

The William F. Nye Co.’s bottlenose dolphin fishery remained on Hatteras Island until 1928 or ’29.

I don’t want to give the whole story away here, but if you want to learn more,  the North Carolina Maritime Museum has already posted my lecture on its YouTube channel.

The whole symposium was wonderful. The amazing Vicki Szabo, who teaches at  Western Carolina University, gave a fascinating presentation on the extensive mythology and scientific knowledge of whales in Medieval Iceland and other parts off the North Atlantic.

Keith Rittmaster, the founder and driving force behind the museum’s Bonehenge Whaling Center, did an extremely informative overview of the 35 species of cetaceans that have been documented on the North Carolina coast.

Keith also discussed the conservation challenges ahead for whales and dolphins on our coast, and he charted some the exciting, day in and day out work that is happening at the Bonehenge Whaling Center.

Another exciting presentation was by marine biologist Tommy Tucker of the Coastal Studies Center on Cape Cod. With a contagious passion, she is devoted to understanding and raising public awareness of the critically endangered Rice’s whale, which is only found in the Gulf of Mexico.

Her presentation was brilliant. In addition to studying Rice’s whales, Tommy also uses arts and crafts to nurture interest in them, including this work in which each depiction of a Rice’s whale represents one of the 52 Rice’s whales currently known to be surviving in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of these presentations are now available on the museum’s YouTube channel, which you can find here. I don’t know about mine, but the presentations by Vicki, Keith, and Tommy are not to be missed!

I found the whole day inspiring. It was so encouraging to be at a museum where the staff are so dedicated to telling the story of North Carolina’s coastal history and do so in such a professional way.

The museum’s auditorium was full of people from many walks of life– scientists, historians, students, fishermen and women, and all sorts of other lovers of whales and the sea.

All were coming together to discover more about these glorious creatures of the sea and what we might do to make sure that they are still here to inspire and enthrall our children and grandchildren.

It was a joy to be part of it.

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The Bonehenge Whale Center was literally built by volunteers dedicated to marine conservation, education, and research on the whales, dolphins, and porpoises of the North Carolina coast.

You can learn more about the Center’s remarkable work and how you might contribute to it here.