 During the Soviet era, especially after World War II, the natives in Chukotka were provided with modern equipment to process the whales, and if that wasn’t enough, a modern catcher ship, "Zevezdny", which boosted the catch to around 130-200 whales per year from no more than 30 annually, which remained the norm for the rest of the Soviet era.Not all of it was destined for subsistence, however.Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society launched an expedition into Loren in Chukotka in 1981 and found that many of the whales killed in the “subsistence hunt” were actually used for mink food, and were being processed by non-aboriginal Russians.