2006/19: Should the ban on commercial whaling be lifted?<BR>

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2006/19: Should the ban on commercial whaling be lifted?

Photo: A whale is cut up at Australia's last mainland-based whaling operation at Albany, WA. Photo taken in 1965. Original held in National Library of Australia

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What they said ...

'Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture would compare to Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies'
The Japanese Whaling Association

'We found that for one whale the time to death was over half an hour; we found that the average time to death was 10 minutes and in two out of the 16 occasions, asphyxiation was the likely form of death'
Vassili Papastavrou, a spokesperson for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, commenting on Japanese whaling practices

The issue at a glance
In 1982, the International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling. While Japan initially intended to object to the moratorium, it withdrew its submission in the face of the threat of economic sanctions made by the United States. Japan continues limited whaling today under a scientific research permit.
At an IWC meeting in 2006, a resolution calling for the eventual return of commercial whaling was passed by a majority of just one vote. Environmental groups accused developing countries of taking Japan's side in this vote in return for financial aid. These claims have been denied by the countries involved.
The debate as to whether the ban on commercial whaling should be lifted has acquired a new urgency.

Background
Current state of whaling - 'scientific research'
Japan catches hundreds of whales every year, mainly from the South Pacific population of Minke Whales. The purpose of this killing is disputed. Currently, the Japanese Government say the whaling is for scientific research. The International Whaling Commission's Convention allows permits whaling for this purpose. Those opposed to Japanese whaling, such as the governments of Australia, the United States and other western countries, say the whaling is a thinly-disguised way of carrying out commercial whaling.
In 1983 the Icelandic parliament decided by a one vote majority not to lodge a reservation against the moratorium which it was entitled to do under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. Officially Iceland ceased commercial whaling in 1983, however soon after began whaling for research purposes. Critics again argue that this supposed research-based whaling is merely a disguised form of commercial whaling.
Norway is not bound by the 20-year-old commercial moratorium administered by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) because it objected to the ban's introduction. Norway's commercial exploitation of whales is regulated by quotas which have risen progressively since 1982. Currently Norway kills some 800 minke whales a year.

IWC annual meetings
Japan annually petitions the International Whaling Commission requesting that a quota for a commercial Minke Whale hunt be given. Although the IWC General Committee is split roughly 50-50 on whether commercial whaling should recommence, the petition has not yet come close to passing because substantial change to the moratorium requires a 75% majority under IWC rules.

Internet information

The ABC's Catalyst program recently presented a 12-minute segment on scientific whaling. In this segment, a panel of experts goes through all known research documents arising from Japanese whaling. A direct link to the Web version of this program can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/science/broadband/catalyst/asx/whalescience_hi.asx Caution: you will need a fairly fast connection speed to view this film - broadband preferably

The International Whaling Commission is the multinational group that regulates and currently prohibits commercial whaling.
This organisations site can be found at http://www.iwcoffice.org/

The Japanese Whaling Association is a Japan-based lobby group that defends whaling for scientific purposes and is seeking to have the moratorium on commercial whaling lifted.
Its Internet site gives a great deal of information in support of the pro-whaling position. Two sections of particular interest are the Q & A (question and answer) section and the 'History of Whaling' section. The whole site repays careful investigation.
It can be found at http://www.whaling.jp/english/index.html

The World Council for Whalers is a lobby group seeking to raise awareness of the history of whaling and its importance for communities in many countries.
This site can be found at http://www.worldcouncilofwhalers.com/index.htm

Greenpeace is a non-profit conservation organisation, with a presence in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. One of its key projects is opposition to whaling around the globe. It has monitored and attempted to impede whaling in both southern and northern oceans. Its Internet site gives detailed arguments against whaling.
This can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/save-our-seas-2/save-the-whales/japanese-whaling

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS)
is a lobby group seeking to protect and conserve whales and dolphins around the world. The group's Internet site has a detailed report explaining the cruelty involved in whaling.
The full text of this report can be found at http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/c525f7df6cbf01ef802569d600573108/8f0ee5d1d9def5a980256d4a0040d97a/$FILE/WDCS_HK_report_sp.pdf

The WDCS also has a detailed critical account of Japanese commercial whaling. This can be found at http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/allweb/70EBE812C746F51B80256F3500551518

The WDCS also has an account of Iceland's apparent intention to resume commercial whaling. This article can be found at http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/c525f7df6cbf01ef802569d600573108/b2460680bc28d8f480256d4a0040d97b/$FILE/Iceland-report-english.pdf

Arguments in favour of lifting the ban on commercial whaling

1. Many whale species can be commercially harvested without risk to the species survival
The Japanese Whaling Association claims that no whales have ever been hunted to extinction and that those whales most at risk should remain completely protected. However, the Association argues that there are a number of whale species which are plentiful and which could be harvested without putting the species in danger. The Association refers to regulated commercial exploitation of specific whale species as 'marine management'. On its website it states, '...there are species which are abundant enough that marine management is needed, such as the Antarctic and northwestern Pacific minke whales and northwestern Pacific Bryde's whales.'
The Association further claims, 'Over-exploitation could not happen again because of the stronger regulations and checks and balances that would accompany any reintroduction. The International Whaling Commission would control whaling if it were allowed again, just as it controls the bans now.'

2. Japan has strict regulations in place which would ensure that endangered species were not harvested or offered for sale
Those supporting a reintroduction of commercial whaling argue that countries such as Japan would never allow the harvesting of plentiful species to become the thin edge of a wedge leading to the illegal harvesting of other endangered species.
The Japanese Whaling Association has stated, 'Illegal catches or trade are unlikely since the Government of Japan has strict regulations that prohibit whaling for species regulated by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in compliance with the moratorium on commercial whaling and because the import of whale meat from non-IWC member countries is prohibited by regulation.
DNA analyses of samples of whale products currently distributed in the Japanese markets conducted by the Fisheries Agency of Japan and Traffic-Japan have not substantiated any illegal catches or trade.'

3. The current moratorium on commercial whaling is contrary to the convention under which the IWC was established
Countries favouring the reintroduction of commercial whaling argue that the IWC, in imposing a total ban on the commercial exploitation of any whale species, is ignoring the purpose for which it was created.
The Japanese Whaling Association has noted, 'The International Whaling Commission was established by the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. [Under this Convention] the IWC's objective is: "to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry." However, the IWC is now ignoring an important element of its objective - the orderly development of the industry.'
According to this line of argument, the IWC was established to oversee and foster the whaling industry, not to orchestrate its demise. Proponents of commercial whaling argue that the body, in imposing the commercial whaling moratorium of 1982 (which is still in place) was and is acting against the purpose for which it was set up.

4. The International Whaling Commission reached its decision to ban commercial whaling inappropriately
Opponents of the International Whaling Commission's 1982 decision to ban commercial whaling dispute it on two counts. Firstly, they judge that the decision was reached ideologically, without being backed by thorough, scientifically acquired. Secondly, they consider that many of those nations that voted for the ban were ring-ins - nations with no history of or interest in whaling who had been recruited by other members of the IWC opposed to whaling, simply to vote for the ban.
These two accusations are made of the website of the Japanese Whaling Association. The Association claims, 'The IWC is now controlled by a majority anti-whaling group backed up by anti-whaling non-governmental organizations, which has lead to various stringent regulations against whaling, one after another, which caused the IWC to deviate from its original objectives.
The most conspicuous example of the violation of the Convention was the adoption of a commercial whaling moratorium in 1982. The Convention requires that all conservation measures shall be based on scientific findings, and the IWC Scientific Committee has never recommended a moratorium in the past.
The moratorium was achieved by anti-whaling groups like Greenpeace recruiting into the IWC many countries that had nothing to do with whaling, thus giving the anti-whaling forces the majority they needed.'

5. Whaling is an established part of the cultural tradition of Japan and other nations
Despite claims to the contrary, supporters of commercial whaling note that whale meat has been consumed by the Japanese for many thousands of years.
Fossil and other evidence apparently suggests that passive whaling (the utilisation of dead or dying whales) has been practised in Japan since prehistoric times, while the active hunting of small cetaceans probably dates from the Jomon Period (10,000 - 300 B.C.), as suggested by finds of hand harpoons and porpoise skulls in burial mounds.
Organised whaling using boats, hand harpoons and land stations began in the 16th century and soon came to assume great importance in the economies of Wakayama, Shikoku, northern Kyushu, and the Japan Sea coast of Yamaguchi. The preferred species were gray and right whales, but in Katsuyama, Chiba Prefecture, a tradition began in the 17th century of catching Baird's beaked whales.
Then, in 1675, a hunting method was begun in Taiji in which groups of up to 300 people herded whales into nets and harpooned them. Species caught were gray whales, right whales, humpbacks, fin whales and probably some minkes. The net method spread throughout the southwest of the country and would dominate Japanese whaling until the end of the 19th century. The whales were utilised in many ways, including the human consumption of whale meat, which is, it is claimed, an important and established part of Japanese culture.

6. A blanket ban on commercial whaling grows out of cultural bias and disregards the traditions of those countries for which whale consumption is a tradition
It has been claimed that those who support a total ban on commercial whaling are being insensitive to the needs of those countries where whale-consumption is an established and valued part of the culture. It has further been claimed that the ban grows out of a culturally-based sensitivity to the killing of whales which is peculiar to some Western nations. This sensitivity, it is argued, is partially and inconsistent, as in countries like Australia kangaroos are hunted and their meat supplied both for human consumption and the pet food market.
The Japanese Whaling Association has claimed, 'Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture would compare to Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies, Americans being asked to stop eating hamburgers and the English being asked to go without fish and chips.
Attitudes toward animals are a part of national cultures. No nations should try to impose their attitudes on others. Anti-whaling countries regard whales as sacred, and want the ban on whaling to continue on the grounds that ... whaling itself is unethical.' Supporters of commercial whaling argue that no country or group of countries has the right to impose its values on others and that to many nations whales are no more worthy of preservation than any other food source.

Arguments against lifting the ban on commercial whaling
1. There is no significant demand for whale meat in Japan or Norway
A 2002 survey conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper found that only 4 per cent of respondents ate whale meat 'sometimes' and 9 per cent 'infrequently'. By contrast, 86 per cent said they had never eaten the meat or had stopped doing so in childhood.
'The only time one hears news of whale meat selling out is when it is given away for free in whale soup at some event,' Junko Sakuma, a former Greenpeace official turned freelance writer has claimed.
Conservationists have attributed whale meat's virtual disappearance from Japanese diets to a combination of changing food preferences and sensitivity about eating an animal that so much of the rest of the world regards with awe.
In 1995 Norwegian whalers caught 217 whales out of a quota of 232. In 1996 the quota was 425. In 1997 the quota was 700. It has been argued that this rise is questionable as 50 tons of whale meat from the 1996 season had to be frozen and put into storage due to the lack of demand. Norway is currently claiming that it will need access to the Japanese market if it is to profitably sell its increased whale kills.

2. The hunting of whales and the consumption of whale meat is not culturally significant in Japan
It has been claimed that consumption of whale meat has never been a significant part of the Japanese diet and that historically the meat was most often acquired through passive whaling, the utilisation of the flesh of animals that were either dead or dying.
Junichi Sato, the campaign director of Greenpeace Japan, has claimed, 'Coastal regions once had a tradition of limited local whaling, but we never used to send fleets of ships out to the Southern Ocean. It is pretty obvious that whaling is no longer a part of our culture.'
It is claimed by opponents of commercial whaling, that the only traditional, whaling in Japan, was the lancing of stranded whales and a limited form of 'net whaling', which came to an end around 1901 when Norwegian catcher boats and Norwegian harpooners were hired to increase the profitability of the Japanese coastal industrial whaling operations.
It is claimed Japan's whaling policy from this point has been inherently linked to commercial expansion and the 'traditional whaling' was finally eliminated under the weight of competition from the new foreign technology and stopped in 1905.
It is now claimed that whale meat consumption is so alien to contemporary Japanese that the government is conducting a promotional campaign among schoolchildren to try to establish a market for the product. In May 2006 the government set up a company that will market the meat to schools, hospitals and family restaurants in a bid to boost consumption and reduce stockpiles.
In 2005, schoolchildren in Wakayama prefecture, the home of the Japanese whaling industry, were give deep-fried whale meat in their school lunches, and there are plans to extend the school meals programme to other areas.

3. Japan is manipulating the membership of the IWC to secure the reintroduction of commercial whaling and the vote is not representative
Critics of commercial whaling have argued that Japan is using its economic strength to bribe with aid packages poor members. It is claimed that Japan is prepared to offer financial assistance to other nations in return for their support in voting in a reintroduction of commercial whaling.
In May 2006, the Japanese foreign ministry convened a secret meeting of pro-whaling countries to discuss tactics before the IWC meeting. Since 1998, Japan has persuaded 19 new countries to join the IWC. It has increased aid to Belize, Mali and other countries that have recently joined the IWC but have yet to vote. Earlier this year it pledged more than $1m to the Pacific island of Tuvalu, a pro-whaling IWC member, and has reached similar deals with Nauru and Kiribati and other impoverished Pacific islands.
According to a World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) poll, in all but one of the Pacific and Caribbean countries, more people opposed whaling than supported it.
The WWF commissioned surveys in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Palau, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu, asking the question: 'Do you think your country should vote for or against a return to commercial whaling?'
The strongest response came from Antigua and Barbuda, where 79% voted 'no' and 14% 'yes'; the only country responding in favour was Grenada, and that by only 1%.
Sue Lieberman of the WWF has claimed that governments are ignoring public opinion by claiming to vote for whaling on behalf of their citizens.

4. Whales are not a threat to fish stock
Opponents of commercial whaling deny claims that whale numbers need to be reduced because whales are posing a threat to fish stack.
A variety of conservation bodies and marine experts claim that great whales do not eat tuna or other commercially important species and that they do not compete with them directly for food.
Most great whales in the South Pacific are baleen whales, which means they do not have teeth. Blue, southern right, humpback and minke whales are all filter feeders, feeding on plankton and Antarctic krill and fasting during migration and on breeding grounds in the South Pacific.
Some whales, including sperm, Bryde's and minke, feed on small quantities of fish and squid species not commercially exploited.
The United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation recently found that 35 per cent of 200 major fish resources are over fished and 25 per cent are being fished to their limit. Studies suggest that fishing needs to be reduced by up to 50 per cent to return world fisheries to a sustainable level. Overfishing, it is argued, not whales, are the source of declining fish numbers.
There is no conclusive evidence showing whales are impacting on fishery yields. Most populations of great whales in the South Pacific are today a small fraction of their pre-exploitation levels, due to unregulated whaling over the past 200 years.

5. Commercial whaling puts whale populations at risk
Opponents of commercial whaling claim that if it were reintroduced, whale numbers, which have been recovering since the imposition of the ban would again begin to decline. Those who want the ban retained point to the devastation of many whale species which occurred before the ban was put in place.
Between 1904 and 1986 about 2 million whales were killed in the southern hemisphere alone. By the early 1980s, unregulated whaling had reduced the number of humpback and grey whales by an estimated 98 per cent.
Critics of a return to commercial whaling also point to the damage that is being done by a loophole in the IWC regulations which allows pro-whaling countries to hunt about 2,000 whales a year in the name of scientific research. When the 'research' is done, the meat is packed and sold in Japanese restaurants and supermarkets.
In 2005, about 1,300 whales were killed during scientific hunts, and early this year whaling fleets returned with more than 2,100. Norway's cull of 1,052 minke whales in the North Atlantic this year was its highest since the ban went into effect. Japan, meanwhile, returned from the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary with 850 minke whales - twice the previous season's take - as well as 10 fin whales, a species listed as endangered.
It is claimed that the above whale kills attributable to 'scientific research' would be only a fraction of the number of whales likely to be killed if commercial harvesting were reintroduced.

6. Whaling inflicts significant distress on the animal being hunted
It has been claimed, that even with improved killing techniques, the procedures used to hunt and kill whales do not meet the standard required for 'humane killing'.
During the 1992 IWC Workshop on Whale Killing Methods, 'humane killing' of
a whale was affirmed by the IWC to be 'causing its death without pain, stress or distress perceptible to the animal'. It was also stated that 'any humane killing technique aims to render an animal insensitive to pain as swiftly as technically possible.'
During the 1999 IWC Workshop on Whale Killing Methods, it was further noted that 'causing humane death without pain in meat animals usually includes the induction of
instantaneous insensibility by stunning.' 'Instantaneous' in this context is embodied in European Union Legislation which requires a limit of about 100 milliseconds between stimulus (application of stunning device) and unconsciousness. The
figure of 100 milliseconds is based on the pain perception delay of 100 to 150 milliseconds found in meat animals.'
Critics of whaling argue that modern whaling techniques clearly do not come close to
delivering 'death without pain, stress or distress'. All current whaling methods include a chase and, even in hunts where more powerful killing weapons are used, irreversible insensibility or instantaneous death - the key to a humane kill
- is not achieved in a significant number of cases.
Environmentalists who have filmed Japanese boats whaling in the Antarctic have claimed that some animals took 30 minutes to die.
Vassili Papastavrou, a spokesperson for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has claimed, 'We found that for one whale the time to death was over half an hour; we found that the average time to death was 10 minutes and in two out of the 16 occasions, asphyxiation was the likely form of death.'
Vassili Papastavrou claimed that the whales were asphyxiated because harpoons entered their bodies near the tail and the animals were held upside down in the water.
'It's simply impossible for the harpooner to hit the whale close enough to the brain to ensure a reliable clean kill in all cases,' Vassili Papastavrou has stated.

Further implications
All that is certain is that the dispute surrounding commercial whaling is far from over.
The International Whaling Commission's annual meeting ended with the possibility of compromise, apparently prompted by the relative success of the pro-whaling faction.
Japan has claimed that some anti-whaling nations are softening their opposition. Joji Morishita, the deputy whaling commissioner for Japan, has suggested, 'I think we are sensing a slight change of attitude among [anti-whaling] member countries of the IWC ... Because the sustainable-use side had the St Kitts Declaration adopted, there is more willingness to talk about the compromise or middle ground. I would definitely like to encourage that willingness for next year's meeting in Anchorage.'
The United States, which has a long history of opposition to commercial whaling, has raised the possibility of working with whaling nations to make the practice more sustainable.
William Hogarth, the United States whaling commissioner, has said that although his country remained opposed to commercial whaling, it is prepared to work with pro-whaling nations to ensure that if the ban is eventually lifted, hunting would be conducted along sustainable lines. Hogarth indicated that the current situation could not be allowed to continue.
Hogarth noted, 'The bottom line is that the number of whales taken is increasing; it increased by 1,000 between 2005 and 2006. And so the goal should be to put a process in place that will protect the whales and make sure that any removal will not impede their recovery or cause a return to the position they were in [before the ban].'
Environmental groups, however, have remained firmly against any compromise and are urging anti-whaling countries to stand firm against a return to commercial hunting. Some environmental groups are planning new campaigns to increase public awareness.
What appears certain is that the three countries which currently catch whales will continue for the foreseeable future, unmoved by the protestations of environmental groups.
Norway lodged an objection against the moratorium at its inception, and is allowed to catch minke whales commercially.
Rune Frovik, the secretary of the High North Alliance, which promotes the interests of whalers and fishermen in the north of Norway, has stated, 'Norway's intention is to continue to develop commercial whaling. It will probably increase the quota in the coming years, and perhaps other species will be added. But that depends on the scientific work that's done and also on the market conditions - we need access to the Japanese market, and that's what we think is paramount.'
Both Japan and Iceland hunt under an article in the whaling convention that allows catches for scientific research.
Indigenous groups, principally around the Arctic, take smaller numbers for local consumption. Quotas for these indigenous groups are due for review at the 2007 IWC meeting in Anchorage, when the United Stated will chair the Commission.
By then the anti-whaling bloc will probably by stronger, boosted by the extra number of countries which European delegates hope to bring onto the IWC now that the whalers have had their victory.

Newspaper items used in the compilation of this issue outline
The Age:
AGE, May 11, page 14, news item by D Cameron, `Whalers meet their match in stockpile sale'.
AGE, June 15, page 11, news item by Khadem and Darby, `Japan has support to topple ban'.
AGE, June 21, page 13, analysis by Andrew Darby, `On the whale trail'.
AGE, June 20, page 5, news item by Andrew Darby, `Whalers rejoice as vote pressures moratorium'.
AGE, June 19, page 5, news item by Andrew Darby, `Japan under attack for inhumane humpback deaths'.
AGE, June 17, page 8, news item by Andrew Darby, `Australian humpback whales could end up as Japanese steaks'.
AGE, June 16, page 12, editorial, `Slaughter in the oceans moves closer'.

The Australian:
AUST, May 13, page 11, news item by Amanda Hodge, `Whalers build numbers to turn back the clock'.
AUST, May 26, page 6, news item by Amanda Hodge, `Whales vanishing as Japan increases its catch'.
AUST, June 15, page 12, comment by Masako Fukui, `Pro-whalers' stand hard to swallow'.
AUST, June 14, page 11, analysis (with list of pro-whaling countries / nations) by P Alford, `Dead meat'.
AUST, June 20, page 15, editorial, `Whaling blowhards'.
AUST, June 20, page 7, news item by Geoff Elliott, `Applause and jeers as Japan snares symbolic whaling victory by smallest margin'.
AUST, June 19, page 11, analysis by Geoff Elliott, `Bag of money lends weight to the whalers'.
AUST, June 19, page 3, news item by Geoff Elliott, `Japanese accused as whale ban stays'.

The Herald-Sun:
H/SUN, May 26, page 14, news item by Sarah Wotherspoon, `Whaling toll is 25,000'.
H/SUN, June 20, page 20, editorial, `Saving the whales'.

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