The number of whales killed globally peaked in the 1960s…
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The number of whales killed globally peaked in the 1960s
Global whale populations fell dramatically over the 20th century due to human hunting. Some whale species were pushed to the brink of extinction.
But a combination of conservation efforts, technological change, economic incentives, and international policies has reduced global whaling to much lower levels.
In the mid-1980s, a global moratorium was agreed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), making commercial whaling illegal.
You can see this decline in the chart, which shows the number of whales killed per decade.
The chart combines data from two sources: before the 1990s it comes from the paper “Emptying the Oceans” by Robert C. Rocha, Jr. and colleagues; since then, it comes from the IWC.
While whaling activity is much lower, it hasn’t been eliminated completely. There are exceptions to the IWC’s moratorium, and Japan withdrew from the IWC completely in 2019.
**Data source:** Rocha et al. (2014) https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/content/emptying-oceans-summary-industrial-whaling-catches-20th-century ; International Whaling Commission (2026) https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches
**Tools used:** OWID-Grapher and Figma
#education
source
Global whale populations fell dramatically over the 20th century due to human hunting. Some whale species were pushed to the brink of extinction.
But a combination of conservation efforts, technological change, economic incentives, and international policies has reduced global whaling to much lower levels.
In the mid-1980s, a global moratorium was agreed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), making commercial whaling illegal.
You can see this decline in the chart, which shows the number of whales killed per decade.
The chart combines data from two sources: before the 1990s it comes from the paper “Emptying the Oceans” by Robert C. Rocha, Jr. and colleagues; since then, it comes from the IWC.
While whaling activity is much lower, it hasn’t been eliminated completely. There are exceptions to the IWC’s moratorium, and Japan withdrew from the IWC completely in 2019.
**Data source:** Rocha et al. (2014) https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/content/emptying-oceans-summary-industrial-whaling-catches-20th-century ; International Whaling Commission (2026) https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches
**Tools used:** OWID-Grapher and Figma
#education
source
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