A 19th century label from a container of "Jonah Sperm Oil"

Whale oil (or "train oil") is oil obtained from whales. This was sourced from the blubber of the three species of right whale (Eubalaena japonica, E. glacialis, and E. australis) and the bowhead whale (Balaena mysicetus) as well as several other species of baleen whale - or in the case of sperm whale oil, from the head cavities of the sperm whale.

The first principal use of whale oil was as an illuminant in lamps and as candle wax. It was a major food of the aboriginal peoples of the Pacific northwest, such as the Nootka. Whale oil later came to be used in oiling wools for combing and other uses. It was the first of any animal or mineral oil to achieve commercial viability. It was used to make margarine and was the basis of very effective protective paint for steel, e.g. the original (but not current) Rust-Oleum.

Whale oil was heavily used in the mid 1700's and early 1800's.^[1] Whale oil's predominant place in society was mostly eliminated with the development of kerosene from coal in 1846, and the advances in petroleum drilling in the late 19th century, which led to petroleum-based waxes and oils replacing whale oils in most nonfood applications. Sperm whale oil was however still a key component in automatic transmission fluid until 1972.^[2] With the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, whale oil has all but ceased to be viable, as substitutes have been found for most of its uses, notably jojoba oil.^[3]

About[link]

Sperm oil is the oil from the head cavity of the sperm whale. (The oil from the sperm whale's blubber is just a common whale oil.) A large sperm whale can hold as much as three tons of sperm oil. Stearin and spermaceti may be separated from sperm oil at low temperatures; at under 6 °C (43 °F) these constituents may be almost completely crystallized and filtered out. When removed and pressed, this deposit is known as whale tallow, and the oil from which it is removed is known as pressed whale oil, yet is sometimes passed as sperm oil.

The term "train oil" was originally specific to right whale oil, but this term has been applied to all blubber oils and, in Germany and Sweden, to all marine animal oils: fish oils, liver oils, and blubber oils.

Whale oil flows readily, is clear, and varies in colour from a bright honey yellow to a dark brown, according to the condition of the blubber from which it has been extracted.

In literature and memoirs[link]

The pursuit and use of whale oil, along with many other aspects of whaling, are discussed in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. In the novel, the preciousness of the substance to contemporary American society is emphasized when the fictional narrator notes that whale oil is "as rare as the milk of queens." John R. Jewitt, an Englishman who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest Coast in 1802–1805, describes how what he calls train oil was used as a condiment with every dish, even strawberries.

Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind (1896), ^[4] when discussing food materials in Oceania, quoted James Cook's comment in relation to "the Maoris" saying "No Greenlander was ever so sharp set upon train-oil as our friends here, they greedily swallowed the stinking droppings when we were boiling down the fat of dog-fish."

See also[link]

• Oleochemical
• Sperm whaling
• Spermaceti
• Harriet Hoxie (clipper), 1851 clipper, first whale oil charter from Honolulu

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Whale oil and its uses, an overview with illustrations
• Knapp, Friedrich Ludwig; Dibdin, William Joseph (1895), "Whale oil - Train oil", Chemical technology: or, Chemistry in its applications to arts and manufactures, II, Lighting, London: J & A Churchill, pp. 43–44, OCLC 3592958, http://books.google.com/books?id=nBduAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22whale%20oil%22&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q=%22whale%20oil%22&f=false 
• Stevenson, C H; United States Fish Commission (1903), "Conversion of blubber into whale oil, Refining sperm oil and whale oil", Aquatic products in arts and industries: Fish oils, fats, and waxes, fertilizers from aquatic products. U.S. Fish Commission Report, 1902, Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 193–204, OCLC 21059426, http://books.google.com/books?id=n0w9AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22whale%20oil%22&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q=%22whale%20oil%22&f=false , Includes descriptions, photographs and statistics.
• Tower, Walter Sheldon (1907), A history of the American whale fishery, Series in political economy and public law, no. 20, Philadelphia: Published for the University, pp. 94–95, ISBN 1-116-72422-7, OCLC 145429333, http://books.google.com/books?id=du4JAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22whale%20fishery%22%20%22whale%20oil%22&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q=%22whale%20fishery%22%20%22whale%20oil%22&f=false 
• How Capitalism Saved the Whales, by James S. Robbins
• Coleman, Jr, James L (1995), "The American Whale Oil Industry: A Look Back at the Future of the American Petroleum Industry", Natural Resources Research 4 (no. 3) 

Whale Temporal range: 50–0 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N Eocene – Recent
North Atlantic right whales, mother and calf
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Eutheria
Order:	Cetacea

Whale (origin Old English hwæl) is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea.^[1] The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises,^[2] which belong to suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales). This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga whale. The other Cetacean suborder Mysticeti (baleen whales) are filter feeders that eat small organisms caught by straining seawater through a comblike structure found in the mouth called baleen. This suborder includes the blue whale, the humpback whale, the bowhead whale and the minke whale. All Cetacea have forelimbs modified as fins, a tail with horizontal flukes, and nasal openings (blowholes) on top of the head.

Whales range in size from the blue whale, the largest animal known ever to have existed^[3] at 30 m (98 ft) and 180 tonnes (180 long tons; 200 short tons), to various pygmy species, such as the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5 m (11 ft).

Whales collectively inhabit all the world's oceans and number in the millions, with annual population growth rate estimates for various species ranging from 3% to 13%.^[4] For centuries, whales have been hunted for meat and as a source of raw materials. By the middle of the 20th century, however, industrial whaling had left many species seriously endangered, leading to the end of whaling in all but a few countries.

Taxonomy[link]

Cetaceans are divided into two suborders:

• The largest suborder, Mysticeti (baleen whales) are characterized by baleen, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of keratin, which it uses to filter plankton from the water.
• Odontoceti (toothed whales) bear sharp teeth for hunting. Odontoceti also include dolphins and porpoises.

Both cetaceans and artiodactyl are now classified under the super-order Cetartiodactyla which includes both whales and hippopotamuses. Whales are the hippopotamus's closest living relatives.^[5]

Evolution[link]

Ambulocetus natans – a primitive whale

All cetaceans, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, are descendants of land-living mammals of the Artiodactyl order (even-toed ungulates). Both are related to the Indohyus (an extinct semi-aquatic deer-like ungulate) from which they split around 54 million years ago.^[6][7] Primitive whales probably first took to the sea about 50 million years ago and became fully aquatic about 5–10 million years later.^[8]

Anatomy[link]

Like all mammals, whales breathe air, are warm-blooded, nurse their young with milk from mammary glands, and have body hair.^[9] Beneath the skin lies a layer of fat called blubber, which stores energy and insulates the body. Whales have a spinal column, a vestigial pelvic bone, and a four-chambered heart. The neck vertebrae are typically fused, trading flexibility for stability during swimming.^{[citation needed]}

Blowhole(s)[link]

Features of a blue whale

Whales breathe via blowholes; baleen whales have two and toothed whales have one. These are located on the top of the head, allowing the animal to remain mostly submerged whilst breathing. Breathing involves expelling excess water from the blowhole, forming an upward spout, followed by inhaling air into the lungs. Spout shapes differ among species and can help with identification.

Appendages[link]

The body shape is fusiform and the modified forelimbs, or fins, are paddle-shaped. The end of the tail is composed of two flukes, which propel the animal by vertical movement, as opposed to the horizontal movement of a fish tail. Although whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some (such as sperm whales and baleen whales) possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may even have feet and digits. Most species have a dorsal fin.^{[citation needed]}

Dentition[link]

Toothed whales, such as the sperm whale, possess teeth with cementum cells overlying dentine cells. Unlike human teeth, which are composed mostly of enamel on the portion of the tooth outside of the gum, whale teeth have cementum outside the gum. Only in larger whales, where the cementum has been worn away on the tip of the tooth, does enamel show.^[10]

Instead of teeth, Baleen whales have a row of plates on the upper side of their jaws that resemble the "teeth" of a comb.

Ears[link]

The whale ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance matcher between the outside air’s low impedance and the cochlear fluid’s high impedance. In aquatic mammals such as whales, however, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, whales receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear.^[11] The whale ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater.^[12]

Life history and behavior[link]

Reproduction[link]

Males are called 'bulls', females, 'cows' and newborns, 'calves'. Most species do not maintain fixed partnerships and females have several mates each season.^[13][14]

The female delivers usually a single calf tail-first to minimize the risk of drowning. Whale cows nurse by actively squirting milk, so fatty that it has the consistency of toothpaste, into the mouths of their young.^[13] Nursing continues for more than a year in many species, and is associated with a strong bond between mother and calf. Reproductive maturity occurs typically at seven to ten years. This mode of reproduction produces few offspring, but increases survival probability.

Socialization[link]

Whales are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and even grieve.^[15] The neocortex of many species of whale is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids.^[16] In humans these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment, and theory of mind.^[17] Whale spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar function.^[18]

Sleep[link]

A humpback whale breaching.

Unlike most animals, whales are conscious breathers. All mammals sleep, but whales cannot afford to become unconscious for long because they may drown. It is thought that only one hemisphere of the whale's brain sleeps at a time, so they rest but are never completely asleep.^[19]

Surfacing behavior[link]

Many whales exhibit behaviors such as breaching and tail slapping that expose large parts of their bodies to the air.

Lifespan[link]

Whale lifespans vary among species and are not well characterized. Whaling left few older individuals to observe directly. R.M. Nowak of Johns Hopkins University estimated that humpback whales may live as long as 77 years.^[20] In 2007, a 19th century lance fragment was found in a bowhead whale off Alaska, suggesting the individual could be between 115 and 130 years old.^[21] Aspartic acid racemization in the whale eye, combined with a harpoon fragment, indicated an age of 211 years for another male, which, if true would make bowheads the longest-lived extant mammal species.^[22][23] The accuracy of this technique has been questioned because racemization did not correlate well with other dating methods.^[24]

Vocalization[link]

	Humpback Whale "Song" Recording of Humpback Whales singing and Clicking.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Some species, such as the humpback whale, communicate using melodic sounds, known as whale song. These sounds can be extremely loud, depending on the species. Sperm whales have only been heard making clicks, while toothed whales (Odontoceti) use echolocation that can generate about 20,000 watts of sound (+73 dBm or +43 dBw^[25]) and be heard for many miles. Whale vocalization is likely to serve many purposes, including echolocation, mating, and identification.^{[citation needed]}

Ecology[link]

Feeding[link]

Whales are generally classed as predators, but their food ranges from microscopic plankton to very large animals.

Toothed whales eat fish and squid which they hunt by use of echolocation. Killer whales sometimes eat other marine mammals, including whales.

Baleen whales such as humpbacks and blues, when feeding in higher latitudes (such as the Southern Ocean), eat mostly krill. They imbibe enormous amounts of seawater which they expel through their baleen plates. The water is then expelled and the krill is retained on the plates and then swallowed.^[13] Whales do not drink seawater but indirectly extract water from their food by metabolizing fat.^[13]

Whale pump[link]

A study in 2010 has attributed to whales a positive influence on the productivity of ocean fisheries, in what has been termed a "whale pump." Whales carry nutrients such as nitrogen from the depths back to the surface. This functions as an upward biological pump, reversing the assumption of some scientists that whales accelerate the loss of nutrients to the bottom. They note that this nitrogen input in the Gulf of Maine is "more than the input of all rivers combined," some 23,000 metric tons each year."^[26][27]

Relation to humans[link]

Whaling[link]

Dutch whalers near Spitsbergen. Abraham Storck, 1690

World map of International Whaling Commission (IWC) members/non-members(member countries in blue)

World population graph of Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus)

Some species of large whales are listed as endangered by multinational organizations such as CITES along with governments and advocacy groups primarily due to whaling's impacts. They have been hunted commercially for whale oil, meat, baleen and ambergris (a perfume ingredient from the intestine of sperm whales) since the 17th century.^[28] At its peak in 1846, the American whaling industry employed more than 70,000 people and 736 vessels.^[29] More than 2 million were taken in the 20th century,^[30] and by the middle of the century, many populations were severely depleted.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986.^[31] The ban is not absolute, however, and some whaling continues under the auspices of scientific research^[31] (sometimes not proved^[32]) or aboriginal rights; current whaling nations are Norway, Iceland and Japan and the aboriginal communities of Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada.

Bycatch[link]

Several species of small whales are caught as bycatch in fisheries for other species. In the Eastern Tropical Pacific tuna fishery, thousands of dolphins drowned in purse-seine nets, until preventive measures were introduced. Gear and deployment modifications, and eco-labelling (dolphin-safe or dolphin-friendly brands of tuna), have contributed to a reduction in dolphin mortality by tuna vessels.^{[citation needed]}

Naval sonar[link]

Environmentalists speculate that advanced naval sonar endangers some cetaceans, including whales. In 2003 British and Spanish scientists suggested in Nature that the effects of sonar trigger whale beachings and to signs that such whales have experienced decompression sickness.^[33] Responses in Nature the following year discounted the explanation.^[34]

Mass beachings occur in many species, mostly beaked whales that use echolocation for deep diving. The frequency and size of beachings around the world, recorded over the last 1,000 years in religious tracts and more recently in scientific surveys, have been used to estimate the population of various whale species by assuming that the proportion of the total whale population beaching in any one year is constant. Beached whales can give other clues about population conditions, especially health problems. For example, bleeding around ears, internal lesions, and nitrogen bubbles in organ tissue suggest decompression sickness.^[15]

Following public concern, the U.S. Defense department was ordered by the 9th Circuit Court to strictly limit use of its Low Frequency Active Sonar during peacetime. Attempts by the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society to obtain a public inquiry into the possible dangers of the Royal Navy's equivalent (the "2087" sonar launched in December 2004) failed as of 2008. The European Parliament has requested that EU members refrain from using the powerful sonar system until an environmental impact study has been carried out.

Other environmental disturbances[link]

Other human activities have been suggested by marine biologists to adversely impact whale populations, such as collisions with ships and propellers, poisoning by waste contaminants and the unregulated use of fishing gear that catches anything that swims into it.^{[citation needed]}

In mythology[link]

Whale weather-vane atop the Nantucket Historical Association Whaling Museum displaying a Sperm Whale.

Whales were little understood for most of human history as they spend up to 90% of their lives underwater, only surfacing briefly to breathe.^[35] They also include the largest animals on the planet. Many cultures, even those that have hunted them, hold them in awe and feature them in their mythologies.

In China, Yu-kiang, a whale with the hands and feet of a man was said to rule the ocean.^[36]

In the Tyrol region of Austria it was said that if a sunbeam were to fall on a maiden entering womanhood, she would be carried away in the belly of a whale.^[36]

Paikea, the youngest and favourite son of the chief Uenuku from the island of Mangaia in the present day Cook Islands in New Zealand was said by the Kati Kuri people of Kaikoura to have come from the Pacific Islands on the back of a whale many centuries before.^[37] The novel and movie Whale Rider follow the trials of a girl named Paikia, who lives in such a culture.

The whale features in Inuit creation myths. When ‘Big Raven', a deity in human form, found a stranded whale, he was told by the Great Spirit where to find special mushrooms that would give him the strength to drag the whale back to the sea and thus return order to the world.^[38]

The Tlingit people of northern Canada said that the Orcas were created when the hunter Natsihlane carved eight fish from yellow cedar, sang his most powerful spirit song and commanded the fish to leap into the water.^[38]

In Icelandic legend a man threw a stone at a fin whale and hit the blowhole, causing the whale to burst. The man was told not to go to sea for twenty years but in the nineteenth year he went fishing and a whale came and killed him.^[38]

In East African legend King Sulemani asked God that He might permit him to feed all the beings on earth. A whale came and ate until there was no corn left and then told Sulemani that he was still hungry and that there were 70,000 more in his tribe. Sulemani then prayed to God for forgiveness and thanked the creature for teaching him a lesson in humility.^[38]

Some cultures associate divinity with whales, such as among Ghanaians and Vietnamese, who occasionally hold funerals for beached whales, a throwback to Vietnam's ancient sea-based Austro-asiatic culture.^{[39][40][41][42]} The whale is a revered creature to Vietnamese fishermen. They are respectfully addressed as "Lord". If one finds a stranded whale corpse, one is in charge of holding the funeral for the "Lord" as if it was one's own parent.

The story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale also is told in the Qur'an.^[43]

The Bible, 1611 Authorized Version, expressly mentions whales four times:

• Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
• Job 7:12 Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?
• Ezekiel 32:2 Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.
• Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The translators in that latter verse above thereby identified the "great fish" of the book of Jonah as a whale. It is apparent that Jeremiah recognized that some great fish are mammals. The English word "monster", (used in the ordinary sense of a "huge animal",) is used in the Bible in Jeremiah's Lamentations to refer to whales:

• Lamentations 4:3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

Whales in literature[link]

• Moby Dick

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Carwardine, M. (2000). Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7513-2781-6. .
• Williams, Heathcote (1988). Whale Nation. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-56932-9. .

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Whale

• Whale Evolution
• AquaNetwork Marine Mammal Project
• Oldest whale fossil confirms amphibious origins
• www.whales.org.za Whales information portal
• World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) – information on whales, dolphins, and porpoises

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils.

Etymology[link]

First attested in English 1176, the word oil comes from Old French "oile", from Latin "oleum",^[1] which in turn comes from the Greek "ἔλαιον" (elaion), "olive oil, oil"^[2] and that from "ἐλαία" (elaia), "olive tree".^[3] The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wo, written in Linear B syllabic script.^[4]

Types[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Organic oils[link]

Organic oils are produced in remarkable diversity by plants, animals, and other organisms through natural metabolic processes. Lipid is the scientific term for the fatty acids, steroids and similar chemicals often found in the oils produced by living things, while oil refers to an overall mixture of chemicals. Organic oils may also contain chemicals other than lipids, including proteins, waxes and alkaloids.

Lipids can be classified by the way that they are made by an organism, their chemical structure and their limited solubility in water compared to oils. They have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are considerably lacking in oxygen compared to other organic compounds and minerals; they tend to be relatively nonpolar molecules, but may include both polar and nonpolar regions as in the case of phospholipids and steroids.^[5]

Mineral oils[link]

Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed petrochemicals, are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil.^[6] It is classified as a mineral oil because it does not have an organic origin on human timescales, but is instead obtained from rocks, underground traps, or sands. Mineral oil also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.

Applications[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

A bottle of olive oil used in food

Cosmetics[link]

Oils are applied to hair to give it a lustrous look, to prevent tangles and roughness and to stabilize the hair to promote growth.^{[citation needed]} See Hair conditioner.

Religion[link]

Oils are commonly used in ritual anointments. As a particular example, holy anointing oil has been an important ritual liquid for Judaism and Christianity.

Painting[link]

Color pigments are easily suspended in oil, making it suitable as a supporting medium for paints. The oldest known extant oil paintings date from 650 AD.^[7]

Heat transfer[link]

Oils are used as coolants in oil cooling, for instance in electric transformers. Oils are also used to enhance heating in other applications, such as cooking (especially in frying).

Lubrication[link]

Oils are commonly used as lubricants. Mineral oils are more commonly used as machine lubricants than biological oils are.

Fuel[link]

Some oils burn in liquid or aerosol form, generating heat which can be used directly or converted into other forms of energy such as electricity or mechanical work. To obtain many fuel oils, crude oil is pumped from the ground and is shipped via oil tanker to an oil refinery. There, it is converted from crude oil to diesel fuel (petrodiesel), ethane (and other short-chain alkanes), fuel oils (heaviest of commercial fuels, used in ships/furnaces), gasoline (petrol), jet fuel, kerosene, benzene (historically), and liquefied petroleum gas. A 42 gallon barrel (U.S.) of crude oil produces approximately 10 gallons of diesel, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 19 gallons of gasoline, 7 gallons of other products, 3 gallons split between heavy fuel oil and liquified petroleum gases,^[8] and 2 gallons of heating oil. The total production of a barrel of crude into various products results in an increase to 45 gallons.^[8] Not all oils used as fuels are mineral oils, see biodiesel and vegetable oil fuel.

Chemical feedstock[link]

Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons. Petrochemicals are the refined components of crude oil and the chemical products made from them. They are used as detergents, fertilizers, medicines, paints, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber. Organic oils are another important chemical feedstock, especially in green chemistry.

See also[link]

• Cooking oil
• Emulsifier, a chemical which allows oil and water to mix
• Lubrication
• Wax, a class of compounds with oil-like properties that are solid at common temperatures

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2009)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oil

• Petroleum Online e-Learning resource from IHRDC

Cameron Slater is a controversial New Zealand based Internet blogger who is best known for publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog.^[1] Slater is the son of former National Party President John Slater.^[1]

Slater maintains that the name suppression laws in New Zealand need to be reformed.^[2] In late 2009, he gained notoriety for naming two high profile sex offenders and consequently became the first blogger in New Zealand to be charged with breaching a name suppression order. In January 2010 he named a third person accused of sex offences, and in February 2010 named another person convicted on child pornography charges.

Name suppression controversy[link]

On 23 December 2009, Slater was charged with five counts of breaching name suppression orders. The charges relate to two blog posts that contained pictures which revealed the identities of a prominent New Zealand entertainer and a former New Zealand Olympian who were each charged with sexual offenses.^[2]

On 11 January 2010, Slater published a blog post that used binary and hexadecimal code to allege the identity of a former Member of Parliament charged with indecent assault on a 13 year old girl. The Nelson Bays police have announced that they will begin investigating this further breach of New Zealand's name suppression laws.^[3]

He pleaded not guilty to the five name suppression charges on 9 February 2010, and the same day revealed the identity of a prominent Palmerston North resident whose name was suppressed after being found guilty of possessing thousands of pornographic images of children.^[4] In August 2010 he went on trial, now facing ten charges of breaching suppression orders.^[5] In September he was convicted of nine of the charges, eight of breaching suppression orders for offenders and one of naming a victim in a sexual abuse case. He was fined $750 and ordered to pay court costs of $130 for each of the nine cases.^[6]

In May 2010, Slater published the name of a public servant who had permanent name suppression, after a Wellington District Court jury found him not guilty of assaulting his teenage son. The matter reignited the national debate over the internet and name supproession and the public servant's lawyer Mike Antunovic publicly labelled Cameron a "renegade."^[7]

Personal life[link]

On the weekend of 29−30 May 2010, Slater and his wife lost their home after their income insurance provider, Fidelity Insurance, stopped payments for depression. His wife said that Slater has been living with clinical depression and has "...no thought of the consequences for himself or others or indeed his family".^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Whale Oil Beef Hooked
• Cameron Slater interviewed by Michele Hewitson