Porpoises and Culture
In the Danish city of Middelfart near the straight of Little Belt (Lillebælt) the coat of arms of the city displays a porpoise. This is not only because of porpoises living in the waters of Lille Belt but also because the city has a special history linked to porpoises which date back as far as the 1500s.
Porpoise hunting in Denmark dates back hundreds of years and the first evidence of a porpoise guild is from 1593. Thirty men were part of this guild. They were usually fishermen, ferrymen or sailors by trade, but from Simon’s day on 28 October to Candlemas on 5 February they would hunt porpoises.
The hunters used a special technique where they scared the porpoises into shallow water so that they could drag them on to land and kill them with knives. Porpoises were mainly hunted for their meat and were a seasonal delicacy. However, during the 1700s as street lighting was on an increase porpoise blubber became big business. Blubber could be processed into oil (called train oil) which could burn bright and with hardly any odour. Blubber from eight porpoises would make one barrel of oil! Oil from Middelfart was used in many towns and cities on the island of Funen but also in all street lighting in Odense – Denmark’s third largest city. Odense stopped using oil street lamps in 1853, and in 1887 the last street lamp was lit in Middelfart.
In 1898 the porpoise guild was dissolved and was only revived shortly during the two World Wars. However, in 1959 an historical porpoise guild was founded which aim is to create awareness of the guild’s history and the porpoises. The porpoises became protected in 1967 and are no longer hunted in Denmark.
