Seal hunting in the context of "Fishing"

A harpoon is a long, spear-like projectile used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other hunting to shoot, kill, and capture large fish or marine mammals such as seals, sea cows, and whales. It impales the target and secures it with barb or toggling claws, allowing the fishermen or hunters to use an attached rope or chain to pull and retrieve the animal. A harpoon can also be used as a ranged weapon against other watercraft in naval warfare.

Certain harpoons are made with different builds to perform better with the type of target. For example, the Inuit have short, fixed-foreshaft harpoons for hunting at breathing holes, while loose-shafted ones are made for throwing and remaining attached to the game.

South Georgia is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east–west direction, South Georgia is around 170 kilometres (106 mi) long and has a maximum width of 35 kilometres (22 mi). The terrain is mountainous, with the central ridge rising to 2,935 metres (9,629 ft) at Mount Paget. The northern coast is indented with numerous bays and fjords, serving as harbours.

Discovered by Europeans in 1675, South Georgia had no indigenous population due to its harsh climate and remoteness. Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping of the island. On 17 January 1775, Cook claimed it a British possession, naming it "Isle of Georgia" after King George III. Through its history, it served as a whaling and seal hunting base, with intermittent population scattered in several whaling bases, the most important historically being Grytviken. The main settlement and the capital today is King Edward Point near Grytviken, a British Antarctic Survey research station, with a population of about 20 people.

Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the subfamily Arctocephalinae in the family Otariidae. They are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears (pinnae), relatively long and muscular foreflippers, and the ability to walk on all fours. They are marked by their dense underfur, which made them a long-time object of commercial hunting. Eight species belong to the genus Arctocephalus and are found primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, while a ninth species also sometimes called fur seal, the Northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), belongs to a different genus and inhabits the North Pacific. The fur seals in Arctocephalus are more closely related to sea lions than they are to the Northern fur seal, but all three groups are more closely related to one another than they are to true seals.

Foveaux Strait (/foʊvoʊ/ FOH-voh; Māori: Te Ara-a-Kiwa, lit. 'the Path of Kiwa') is a strait that separates Stewart Island from the South Island of New Zealand. The width of the strait ranges from about 23 to 53 km (14 to 33 mi), and the depth varies between 18 and 46 m (59 and 151 ft). The earliest known chart of the strait was prepared by American sealer, Owen Folger Smith from a whaleboat of the sealing brig Union in 1804.

The passage was named Foveaux Strait in March 1809, after Joseph Foveaux, the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales in Australia. Ferry services across Foveaux Strait began in 1877 and continue to operate regularly between Bluff Harbour and Oban. The strait has been described as "one of the roughest and most unpredictable stretches of water in the world". Severe weather and sea conditions in the strait have contributed to multiple shipwrecks and fatalities. One of these losses was the wreck of the SS Tararua in 1881—the worst maritime disaster for civilian vessels in New Zealand's history, with 131 fatalities. There are currently no formal definitions of the eastern and western boundaries of the strait.

Southland (Māori: Murihiku, lit. 'the last joint of the tail') is New Zealand's southernmost region. It consists of the southwestern portion of the South Island and includes Stewart Island. Southland is bordered by the culturally similar Otago Region to the north and east, and the West Coast Region in the extreme northwest. The region covers over 3.1 million hectares and spans 3,613 km of coastline. As of June 2023, Southland has a population of 103,900, making it the eleventh-most-populous New Zealand region, and the second-most sparsely populated. Approximately half of the region's population lives in Invercargill, Southland's only city.

The earliest inhabitants of Southland were Māori of the Waitaha iwi, followed later by Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu. Early European arrivals were sealers and whalers, and by the 1830s, Kāi Tahu had built a thriving industry supplying whaling vessels, looked after whalers and settlers in need, and had begun to integrate with the settlers. By the second half of the 19th century these industries had declined, and immigrants, predominantly Scottish settlers, had moved further inland. The region maintains a strong cultural identity, including its own distinct dialect of English and strong influences from its Māori and Scottish heritage.

The Greenland Sea (Danish: Grønlandshavet) is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the Atlantic Ocean. However, definitions of the Arctic Ocean and its seas tend to be imprecise or arbitrary. In general usage the term "Arctic Ocean" would exclude the Greenland Sea. In oceanographic studies the Greenland Sea is considered part of the Nordic Seas, along with the Norwegian Sea. The Nordic Seas are the main connection between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and, as such, could be of great significance in a possible shutdown of thermohaline circulation. In oceanography the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas are often referred to collectively as the "Arctic Mediterranean Sea", a marginal sea of the Atlantic.

The sea has Arctic climate with regular northern winds and temperatures rarely rising above 0 °C (32 °F). It previously contained the Odden ice tongue (or Odden) area, which extended eastward from the main East Greenland ice edge in the vicinity of 72–74°N during the winter and acted as a key winter ice formation area in the Arctic. The West Ice forms in winter in the Greenland Sea, north of Iceland, between Greenland and Jan Mayen island. It is a major breeding ground of harp seal and hooded seal that has been used for seal hunting for more than 200 years.

Whaling in Australian waters began in 1791 when five of the 11 ships in the Third Fleet landed their passengers and freight at Sydney Cove and then left Port Jackson to engage in whaling and seal hunting off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. The two main species hunted by such vessels in the early years were right and sperm whales. Humpback, bowhead and other whale species would later be taken.

Whaling went on to be a major maritime industry in Australia providing work for hundreds of ships and thousands of men and contributing export products worth £4.2 million by 1850.

Smith Island is 20 miles (32 km) long and 5 miles (8 kilometres) wide, lying 49 miles (79 km) west of Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands of the British Antarctic Territory. It is separated from Snow Island by the 25-mile-wide (40 km) Boyd Strait, and from Low Island by the 17-mile-wide (27 km) Osmar Strait. Surface area is 148 square kilometres (57 sq mi).

The discovery of the South Shetland Islands was first reported in 1819 by Capt. William Smith, after whom the island is named. This island was known to both American and British sealers as early as 1820, and the name Smith has been well established in international usage for over 100 years, although in Russian literature it is often referred to as Borodino Island, sometimes marked as Borodino (Smith) Island.