The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever existed, weighing as much as two thousand people together. This is why this cetacean was the most chased species in the world due to its size and economic yield when whaling started, around the mid-19th century. The first captures, in northern Norway, expanded to other marine areas, and in only a few decades, in the North Atlantic, more than 15,000 blue whales were caught. By the early 20th century, the populations of the blue whale, which were already small, decreased in many areas of the North Atlantic Ocean, and the species was replaced by the rorqual as the main whaling boats' commercial target.