WI: Whales hunted to extinction

Suppose whaling technology becomes more effective at an earlier date, so that all the largest cetaceans (mysticeti + sperm whales) are hunted to extinction by the late 1800s. At the dawn of the 20th century, the orca is the largest surviving cetacean. What is the effect on the oceans and on human culture? What if whales were known only from mounted skeletons and black-and-white photographs?
 
Any ideas about the cultural ramifications? Ramones said "no Moby Dick", but I would expect people in TTL to be even more fascinated by whales.
 
while only hunting Minke Whales (which are the second smallest subgroup of whales, the Greenlandic Inuits might be even more restricted in their ancestral way of life, leading even more of them to migrate off Greenland
 
Maybe with whales having been driven to extinction as a result of hunting them for oil, the right to capture might be limited early on as it concerns fugacious minerals such as oil and gas.
 
and in that case you'd might be somewhat concerned that limited in this time period means big companies, with whaling being illegal for native populations
 
Killer Whales are dolphins.

Orcas belong to the superfamily delphinoidea, which also includes porpoises, narwhals, and belugas. But there are many species called "dolphins", like the river dolphins, that belong to other superfamilies. This means that bottle-nose dolphins are more closely related to beluga whales than to Amazon river dolphins. The term "dolphin" is applied polyphyletically to many different species within the suborder odontoceti. It doesn't correspond to a clade.

That's why I've stipulated that the orca in TTL is the largest surviving cetacean of any kind.
 
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