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Island shore flensing a whale. Here the head of a large Right
or Bowhead whale has been removed from the body. The baleen plates
can be see sticking upwards (the head is upside down here), baleen
was a very valuable and worthwhile part of the whale in the early
days of whaling, but as time went on and substitutes appeared, it
became less important eventually being discarded as not worthy of
the time spent in recovering and cleaning it.
Shore based whaling however has always been more
small scale and carried out by subsistence level fishing
communities and so in these circumstances, it has more likely that
as much of the whale will be used as is possible. Flensing in the
shallows allows the huge weight of the whale to be manipulated
more easily by ropes attached taking advantage of the buoyancy in
the sea.
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