 In 1962, after all fleets had joined in whaling, the area of the Antarctic south of Australia and New Zealand, which was once filled with humpbacks, was described as a “desert” by some of the factory ship crew.This five-year period (1957–58 to 1961–62) saw the four fleets kill over 37,000 humpbacks in the Antarctic.Catches were so high, in fact, that shore stations in Australia and New Zealand closed in 1963 and 1964 due to the lack of whales.