Hal Whitehead, research professor at Dalhousie University, told Newsweek the whales learned to smash up the whaler boats as an act of self-defense.
Sailors would take down whales with harpoons attached to a heavy rope. Dead whales would then be tied and stowed to the ship. Ashore, the whale's skin and blubber would be peeled off in long strips and boiled down to make the oil.
To protect themselves against predators, such as killer whales, sperm whales usually cluster together in a large group, forming a tight circle of defense. But this didn't work against man, as it formed a perfect target. And so they changed their strategy, Whitehead said. "They have great big jaws and teeth, and the whale boats were floaty little things so they could smash them up and sometimes they did. The way they defended themselves is very different to how they protected themselves against other predators."
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