Humpback whale drawings, Maui, Hawaii 1981

Lahaina on the island of Maui, was the whaling capital of Hawaii from the mid-1800s until commercial whaling ceased in the early 1870s. Humpback whales were declared a protected species in 1966 and Lahaina is now the center of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and whale-watching tourism. Whale-motif art and scrimshaw are popular tourist attactions in Lahaina. Scrimshaw was originally created by whalers who engraved images and letters on bone and teeth of whales and tusks of other walruses. Other ivory and bone replaced whale bone and wood is also sometimes used today.