Pesca : the history of Compania Argentina de Pesca Sociedad Anonima of Buenos Aires ; an account of the pioneer modern whaling company in the Antarctic ;Ian Hart.

"There are many companies in the world that have pursued the whale in modern times, but none was more important and fascinating than the Compania Argentina de Pesca of Buenos Aires. Founded following an Antarctic expedition mishap in 1904, and the initiative of the Norwegian whaling and sealing Captain C.A. Larsen, Pesca (as it was commonly known), was the first whaling company to commercially hunt whales in the Southern Ocean. It was, intriguingly, registered in the Republic of Argentina, a country with no history of whaling, with Argentine directors, supported by a commercial bank of Swedish and German origins; it then established its working base on the uninhabited and British-claimed sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia with a workforce largely drawn from Norway and Sweden. The formation of this whaling company and its cosmopolitan mix was unique in the annals of whaling history, which has made it an especially compelling subject for research and investigation. Its activities encouraged exploration of the Antarctic, triggered the beginnings and subsequent expansion of the great southern whaling industry and brought to the fore not only the regulation of the industry but the question of sovereignty in the Antarctic. This much expanded second edition includes much new information and further photographs, courtesy of contct with yet more of those who served the company in one capacity or another, and the opportunity to delve into further company reports, but a feel for whaling and its consequences for both humans and mammals in the Southern Ocean. Of the first edition, Dr Bernard Stonehouse of the Scott Polar Research Institute said: 'This is a work of scholarship and understanding, filling a void in the published history of twentieth-century whaling. Pesca played key roles throughout the whole history of South Atlantic whaling [and] no other writer has perceived their importance and seized the opportunity to write about them while they still exist in living memory. This edition serves to enhance that claim."--Provided by the publisher.