Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo

What you should know about this indicator

  • This data comes from two sources: The paper "Emptying the oceans: a summary of industrial whaling catches in the 20th century" by Rocha et al. for data pre-1990, and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for data after 1990.
  • The year shown is the start year of the decade. For example, 1950 represents the decade from 1950-1959.
  • Data pre-1990 does not include aboriginal subsistence whaling as it focusses on industrial whaling. Data after 1990 from the IWC includes subsistence whaling.
All whale species
Total number of whales caught per decade
Source
Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko (2014); International Whaling Commission (IWC) (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 29, 2026
Next expected update
May 2027
Date range
1900–2020
Unit
whales

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko – Emptying the Oceans: A Summary of Industrial Whaling Catches in the 20th Century

Retrieved on
May 29, 2026
Retrieved from
https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/content/emptying-oceans-summary-industrial-whaling-catches-20th-century
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Rocha, R. C., Clapham, P. J., & Ivashchenko, Y. V. (2014). Emptying the oceans: a summary of industrial whaling catches in the 20th century. Marine Fisheries Review, 76(4), 37-48.
Retrieved on
May 29, 2026
Retrieved from
https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/content/emptying-oceans-summary-industrial-whaling-catches-20th-century
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Rocha, R. C., Clapham, P. J., & Ivashchenko, Y. V. (2014). Emptying the oceans: a summary of industrial whaling catches in the 20th century. Marine Fisheries Review, 76(4), 37-48.

International Whaling Commission (IWC) – Total Whaling Catches (IWC)

List of annual whale catches by the International Whaling Commission. Includes catches since the moratorium came into place in the 1985/6 Antarctic Season. No blue whales (including pygmy blue whales) or right whales have been caught since the moratorium took effect and therefore neither species is listed in the catches.

Retrieved on
May 29, 2026
Retrieved from
https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Whaling Commission (2026), "Total Catches." IWC, iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches

List of annual whale catches by the International Whaling Commission. Includes catches since the moratorium came into place in the 1985/6 Antarctic Season. No blue whales (including pygmy blue whales) or right whales have been caught since the moratorium took effect and therefore neither species is listed in the catches.

Retrieved on
May 29, 2026
Retrieved from
https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Whaling Commission (2026), "Total Catches." IWC, iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
  • Data after 1990 comes from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which recorded the number of catches at: https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches
  • Data pre-1990 comes from: Rocha, R. C., Clapham, P. J., & Ivashchenko, Y. V. (2014). Emptying the oceans: a summary of industrial whaling catches in the 20th century. Marine Fisheries Review, 76(4), 37-48.
  • For continuity with the Rocha data, we combine common minke and Antarctic minke into a single 'minke' category, and blue and pygmy blue whales into a single 'blue' category. We also add bowhead whales to the "other/unspecified" category in the Rocha data, as they are included in the IWC data but not in Rocha's.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: All whale species”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2022) - “Biodiversity”. Data adapted from Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko, International Whaling Commission (IWC). Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260607-172908/grapher/whales-killed-per-decade.html [online resource] (archived on June 7, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko (2014); International Whaling Commission (IWC) (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko (2014); International Whaling Commission (IWC) (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “All whale species” [dataset]. Rocha, Clapham & Ivashchenko, “Emptying the Oceans: A Summary of Industrial Whaling Catches in the 20th Century”; International Whaling Commission (IWC), “Total Whaling Catches (IWC)” [original data]. Retrieved June 7, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260607-172908/grapher/whales-killed-per-decade.html (archived on June 7, 2026).

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.