Whaling
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Image:Whaling-french and dead whale.jpeg Whaling refers to the practice, history and industries associated with the hunting and killing of whales. In recent history, (most notably during the 19th and 20th centuries) poor conservation management by many nations led to a severe overkill of whale populations, and to the near extinction of several species.
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Management
International cooperation on whaling regulation started in 1931 and a number of multi-lateral agreements now exist in this area, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) of 1946 being the most important. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was founded by the ICRW for the purpose of giving management advice to the member nations on the basis of the work of the Scientific Committee.
The members of the IWC voted in 1982 to enter into a moratorium on all commercial whaling beginning in the 1985-86 season. Since 1992, the IWC Scientific Committee has requested of the IWC that it be allowed to give quota proposals for some whale stocks, but this has so far been refused by the IWC. Norway legitimately continues to hunt minke whales commercially, as it has lodged an objection to the moratorium.
History of Whaling
It is unknown when humans began hunting whales. The earliest archeological record of whaling is found in South Korea where carved drawings, dating back to 6,000 BCE, show that Stone Age people hunted whales using boats and spears. [1] However, over time, whaling techiniques have grown more technologically sophisticated. Initially, whaling was confined to (near) coastal water, such as the Basque fishery targeting the Atlantic Northern right whale around 15th to 18th century and the Atlantic Arctic fishery around and in between Spitzbergen, Greenland from around the 17th to the 20th century. However, after the emergence of modern whaling techniques, certain species of whale started to be seriously affected by whaling. These techniques were spurred in the 19th century by the increase in demand for whale oil,[2] and later in the 20th century by a demand for whale meat.
Whaling history has affected both the development of many cultures as well as their environment.[3]
Iceland
Iceland has a long tradition of subsistence whaling. Indeed, whaling of one form or another has been conducted from the island since it became populated more than eleven hundred years ago. The early reliance of whales is reflected in the Icelandic language - hvalreki is the word for both "beached whale" and "jackpot".
Iceland allowed Norwegian whalers to set up thirteen whaling stations around the island in 1883. By 1915, 17,000 whales had been taken from Icelandic waters, eradicating Atlantic Northern right whales and gray whales in the area. The Icelandic Government banned whaling in its waters to allow time for population recovery. The law was repealed in 1928.
By 1935, Icelanders had set up their own commercial whaling operation for the first time. They hunted mostly sei, fin, and minke whales. In the early years of this operation, blue, sperm, and humpback whales were also hunted, but this was soon prohibited due to decimated numbers. Between 1935 and 1985, Icelandic whalers killed around 20,000 animals in total.
Japan
Harpooning of whales by hand began in Japan in the 12th century, but it was not until the 1670s, when a new method of catching whales using nets was developed, that whaling really began to spread throughout Japan. In the 1890s Japan followed international trends, first switching to modern harpoon whaling techniques, and eventually to factory ships for mass whaling. In the postwar 1940s and 1950s, whale meat became a primary source of food and protein in Japan following the famines that came with World War II. In many whaling nations, the discovery of petroleum products that could replace the industrially important parts of whales, such as the oil, resulted in a decline in the importance and levels of whaling. This was not the case in Japan, however, where whale meat was an important food source, and where the whaling industry was a source of pride in a country that is dependent on food importation to feed its populace.
United States
The whaling history of the United States can be roughly divided into two parts: native whaling and commercial whaling (though overlaps exist). Native whaling is a tradition which reaches back to the earliest settlers of North America millennia before the colonization by Europeans. Commercial whaling in the United States was the center of the world whaling industry during the 18th and 19th centuries and was most responsible for extinction or near-extinction of certain species of whales. New Bedford, Massachusetts and Nantucket Island were the primary whaling centers in the 1800s. In 1857, New Bedford had 329 registered whaling ships. Prior to the 1920's when commercial whaling in the United States waned, as petroleum products began replacing oil derived from whales, numerous fishing ports were actually whaling ports which built whaling ships.
The primary focus of whaling in the United States was the lamp oil made from the prodigious amount of fat contained in whales. The whaling ships carried rendering equipment which rendered fat from the carcasses as soon as it was raised onto the ships. Aside from the fat and certain bones, the majority of carcass was generally thrown back in the water, as there was no market for whale meat. Whale oil was, at that time, the highest quality oil for lamps.
The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania in the late 19th century was the beginning of the end of commercial whaling in the United States as kerosene, distilled from crude oil, replaced whale oil in lamps. Later, electricity gradually replaced oil lamps, and by the 1920's, the demand for whale oil had disappeared entirely.
Today, the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park commemorates the heritage of both commercial and native whaling in the United States at its locations in New Bedford and Barrow, Alaska.
Modern Whaling
Although whale oil has little commercial value today, whale meat has come to be considered a delicacy, particularly in Japan and Norway (though up to the 1980s, whale meat was considered to be inferior to beef in Norway.) The primary species hunted today is the minke whale, the smallest of the baleen whales. Recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 180,000 in the central and North East Atlantic and 700,000 around Antarctica.
Faroe Islands
Around one thousand long-finned pilot whales are killed in the annual whale "grind" by Faroese fisherman each year. The current practice continues a tradition going back to the tenth century. However, anti-whaling campaigners campaign particularly vociferously against Faroese whaling - saying that the method of killing is cruel.
Iceland
Unlike Norway, Iceland did not protest against the IWC moratorium and was therefore limited to whaling conducted under the name of scientific research. Between 1986 and 1989 around 60 animals per year were taken. However under strong pressure from the international community, not convinced that the kills were truly for scientific purposes (particularly because the meat was sold to Japan) Iceland ceased whaling altogether in 1989. Following the 1991 refusal of the IWC to accept its Scientific Committees recommendation to allow limited whaling, Iceland left the IWC.
With significant support from its people, Iceland rejoined the IWC in 2002. This allowed it to restart a program of whaling in the summer of 2003. Iceland presented a feasibility study to the 2003 IWC meeting to take 100 minke, 100 fin, and 50 sei in each of 2003 and 2004. The primary aim of the study was to deepen the understanding of fish-whale interactions - the strongest advocates for a resumed hunt are fisherman concerned that whales are taking too many fish. The hunt was supported by three-quarters of the Icelandic population. Amid concern from the IWC Scientific Committee about the value of the research and its relevance to IWC objectives ("Recent Icelandic Proposal" at [4] and [5]), no decision on the proposal was reached. However under the terms of the convention the Icelandic government issued permits for a scientific catch. In 2003, Iceland took 36 minke whales from a quota of 38. In 2004, it took 25 whales (the full quota). In 2005, the government issued a permit for a third successive year - allowing whalers to take up to 39 whales.
Japan
Template:Main Image:Whale meat on dish.jpg When the commercial whaling moratorium was introduced by the IWC in 1982, Japan lodged an official objection, but withdrew this objection in 1987 after the United States threatened it with sanctions. Thus, Japan became bound by the moratorium, unlike Norway, Russia and (more disputed) Iceland. Therefore, in 1987, Japan stopped commercial whaling activities in Antarctic waters, but in the same year began a controversial scientific whaling program (JARPA - Japanese Research Program in Antarctica).
The Japanese government mainly justifies this type of whaling on the grounds that analysis of stomach contents provides insight into the dietary habits of whales and that analysis of actual tissue is the only way to ascertain the age of a whale as well as the degree of interbreeding in the population which provides vital insight into whale population distribution.
Japan's scientific whaling program has remained controversial, with conservation groups and anti-whaling countries such as the US and Australia maintaining that the number of animals killed is much greater than demanded by scientific purposes and that the real reason for the scientific kills is to provide whale meat for Japanese restaurants and supermarkets. The Japanese government points out that IWC regulations require that whale meat be utilised upon the completion of research. The Japanese government insists that it be allowed to continue research into whale populations and breeding habits in order to refute claims that commercial whaling threatens the sustainability of the populations.
In 1994, Australia attempted to stop some of the Japanese whaling program by enforcing a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around the Australian Antarctic Territory. However, Antarctic territories are not generally recognized internationally. In particular, the Antarctic Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory, specifically states that all claims to Antarctic territories remain unresolved while the treaty is in force. (The treaty was originally devised to prevent conflict between the USSR and USA during the cold war.) Legal advice obtained by the Australian government indicated that attempts to stop Japanese whaling in the Australian Antarctic Territory by resorting to international courts may, in fact, have led to Australia losing its claim to that territory.
In 2002, Japanese whalers took five sperm, 39 sei, 50 Bryde's and 150 minke whales in the northern catch area and 440 minke whales in the southern catch area. The catch was carried out under the IWC's special licence for whaling research.
According to official IWC figures, total numbers for the 2004-2005 whaling season were 441 minke whales (SH area pelagic) 100 minke whales (NP area pelagic) and 60 minke whales in coastal regions of Japan. Three sperm whales and 51 Bryde's whales were also taken (pelagic) during this period bringing the total number of whales in the 2004/05 season to 780.
In 2005, the JARPA scientific research program was replaced by the JARPA-II program, which increases the quota of minke whales to 900, and more controversially, adds fin whales to the program, with a quota of 10 animals in 2005. This move has sparked a great deal of controversy among anti-whaling nations, in particular because fin whales are listed as endangered under the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species. Starting in 2007, Japan plans to harvest up to 50 humpback whales and 50 fin whales annually.
Refer to International Whaling Commission for more details on controversy surrounding the Japanese whaling program.
Norway
| Year | Quota | Catch |
| 1994 | 319 | 280 |
| 1995 | 232 | 218 |
| 1996 | 425 | 388 |
| 1997 | 580 | 503 |
| 1998 | 671 | 625 |
| 1999 | 753 | 591 |
| 2000 | 655 | 487 |
| 2001 | 549 | 550 |
| 2002 | 671 | 634 |
| 2003 | 711 | 646 |
| 2004 | 670 | 541 |
| 2005 | 797 | 639 |
| 2006 | 1052 |
Norway has registered an objection to the International Whaling Commission moratorium, and is thus not bound by it. In 1993, Norway resumed a commercial catch, following a period of five years where a small catch was made under a scientific permit. The catch is made solely from the Northeast Atlantic minke whale population, which is estimated to consist of about 110,000 animals. Norwegian minke whale catches have fluctuated between 503 animals in 1997 to 639 in 2005.
Image:NorwegianWhaleCatches.png
Prior to the moratorium, Norway caught around 2,000 minkes per year. The North Atlantic hunt is divided into five areas and usually lasts from early May to late August. Norway exports a limited amount of whale meat to the Faroes and Iceland. It has been attempting to export to Japan for several years, though this has been hampered by legal protests and concerns in the Japanese domestic market about the effects of pollution on Atlantic whales.
In May 2004, the Norwegian Parliament passed a resolution to considerably increase the number of minkes hunted each year. The Ministry of Fisheries also proposed a satellite tracking programme to monitor numbers of other species as possible prelude to resuming hunting of them.
The arguments for and against whaling
Conservation status
The sharpest point of debate over whaling today concerns the conservation status of hunted species. Today there is widespread agreement around the world that it is morally wrong to exterminate a species of animal. The past unregulated whaling has depeleted the overall whale population to a significant extent and four species of whale are still endangered. Thus, it is unlikely, for instance, that the blue whale will be hunted again for the foreseeable future because its population levels have remained stagnant since the hunting ban was placed on them in the 1960's.
Other species, however, in particular the minke whale, have never been considered endangered and still other species have shown signs of recovery. It is these species of whales that whalers wish to hunt commercially under regulated conditions.
It is a widely held belief in pro-whaling countries that conservation is a mere excuse used by anti-whaling side whose stance largely originates from cultural rather than scientific reasoning. A recent move by anti-whaling groups to diversify their argument has been taken as confirmation of this suspicion.
Still, those opposed to whaling argue that a return to full-scale commercial whaling will lead to economic concerns overriding those of conservation, and there is a continuing battle between each side as to how to describe the current state of each species. For instance, conservationists are pleased that the sei whale continues to be listed as endangered but Japan says that the species has swelled in number from 9,000 in 1978 to about 28,000 in 2002 and so its catch of 50 sei whales per year is safe, and that the classification of endangered should be reconsidered for the north Pacific population.
A complete list of whale conservation statuses as listed by The World Conservation Union (IUCN) is given below. Note that, in the case of the blue and gray whales, the IUCN distinguishes the statuses of various populations. These populations, while not regarded as separate species, are considered sufficiently genetically different to warrant conserving each.
|
Extinct |
Critically Endangered |
Endangered |
Vulnerable |
Lower Risk |
Lower Risk |
Lower Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gray Whale Northwest Pacific population |
|
|
|
Additionally, the IUCN notes that the Atlantic population of gray whales was made extinct around the turn of the eighteenth century.
Organic growth; Method of killing
Image:Whaling harpoon.jpg Farming whales in captivity has never been attempted and would almost certainly be logistically impossible. Thus, unlike the farming of many animals, whale meat is grown entirely organically. However, whales are often killed using explosive harpoons, which puncture the skin of the whale and then explode inside the body. Anti-whaling campaigners say this method of killing is cruel, particularly if carried out by inexperienced gunners, because the whale can take several minutes or even hours to die. In March 2004, Whalewatch, an umbrella group of 140 conservation and animal welfare groups from 55 countries published a report, Troubled Waters, whose main conclusion was that whales cannot be guaranteed to be killed humanely and that all whaling should be stopped. They quoted figures that said 20% of Norwegian and 60% of Japanese-killed whales failed to die as soon as they had been harpooned. John Opdahl of the Norwegian embassy in London responded by saying that Norwegian authorities worked with the IWC to develop the most humane killing methods. He said that the average time taken for a whale to die having been shot was the same as or less than those animals killed by big game hunters on safari. Whalers also say that this free-roaming lifestyle followed by a quick death is less cruel than the long-term suffering of factory-farmed animals.
The pro-whaling High North Alliance points to apparent inconsistencies in the policies of some anti-whaling nations. For instance, the United Kingdom allows the commercial shooting of deer without these shoots adhering to the standards of British slaughterhouses, but says that whalers must meet these standards as a pre-condition before they would support whaling. Moreover, hunting or fox hunting where fox are mauled by dogs are legal in many anti whaling countires. This inconsistency is used to argue that whale are equivalent of cow in India and cruelty argument is mere expression of cultural bigotry, similar to Western attitude toward eating of dog meat in several East Asian countries. [6]
The economic argument
The anti-whaling side of the argument often argues that the killed whales that are those that are most curious about boats and thus the easiest to approach and kill. However, these individuals are also the most valuable to the whale-watching industry in coastal areas, as these "friendly" whales easiest means of providing an experience to their customers. The argument over whether whales are worth more dead than alive is complex and unresolved. The whale-watching industry, and those opposed to whaling on moral grounds, claim that once all benefits to local economies such as hotels, restaurants and other tourist amenities are factored in, and the fact that a whale can only be killed once but watched many times, the economic balance weighs firmly down on the side of not hunting whales. This economic argument is a particular bone of contention in Iceland, which has amongst the most-developed whale-watching operations in the world and where hunting of minke whales began again in August 2003. The argument is less applicable to the Antarctic waters, where Japan wishes to hunt, as minke whales are more abundant there, and there are far fewer whale-watching cruises. Many developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina and South Africa argue that whalewatching, a growing billion-dollar industry, provides more revenue and more equitable distribution of profits than the possible resumption of commercial whaling by pelagic fleets from far-away developed countries. These countries are defending their right to the non-lethal use of whale resources and refuse to bow down to the pressures of the whaling industry to allow the resumption of commercial whaling in their regions. Aside from Indonesia, no country in the Southern Hemisphere is currently whaling or intends to, and proposals to permanently forbid whaling South of the Equator are defended by the abovementioned developing countries plus Peru, Uruguay, Australia, and New Zealand, which strongly object to the continuation of Japanese whaling in the Antarctic.
The pro-whaling side claims that the debate is moot, because on the ground that the anti's argument implies that hunt is done on unsustainable basis. Whalers argue that if whales are hunted on a sustainable basis, the argument that the whale-watching industry and whaling industry is in competition is invalid. Therefore, the pro-whaling side claims that the context of the debate itself is slanted toward anti-whaling rhetoric. Whales are the largest animals in the world, a single whale kill provides more meat than with any other animal. Whaling and its associated activities continue to provide employment and economic stimulant for fishery, logistic, restaurant and other related industries.
Intelligence
The issue of the extent of cetacean intelligence has also been debated, primarily by those opposed to commercial whaling, because some advocates believe that whales' intelligence levels are on par with those of humans. No scientific research has ever explicity supported such a claim, though some research has shown that whales are capable of certain behaviors which are often only associated with humans, other primates and other animal with high intelligence such as pig.
Most of the research on cetacean intelligence has consisted of behavioral inference tests carried out on dolphins. Bottlenose dolphins, for example, are able to recognize their own images in a mirror. However, in other research, they scored lower than ferrets in a test of learning set formation. Generally, both dolphin and pig intelligence is rated as higher than that of dogs and lower than human. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to duplicate these types of tests for whales.
Regardless, many anti-whaling campaigners claim that cetaceans are still among the most intelligent of all nonhumans, and it is therefore morally wrong to kill them for food. However, those in favor of whaling point out that pigs are also amongst the most intelligent of animals, and that it is inconsistent to claim that pigs can be used for food, and whales not, all other considerations notwithstanding. Thus, in the view of pro-whalers, if the slaughter and consumption of another somewhat "intelligent" land animal is a non-issue, then similarly, protestations against the slaughter and consumption of whales cannot logically be ground on the basis of intelligence.
Fishing
Whalers say that whaling is an essential condition for the successful operation of commercial fisheries, and thus the plentiful availability of food from the sea that consumers have become accustomed to. This argument is made particularly forcefully in Atlantic fisheries, for example the cod-capelin system in the Barents Sea. A minke whale's annual diet consists of 10 kilograms of fish per kilogram of body mass (Sigurjonsson and Vikingsson, 1997), which puts a heavy predatory pressure on commercial species of fish. Thus, whalers say that an annual cull of whales is needed in order for adequate amounts of fish to be available for humans. Anti-whaling campaigners say that the pro-whaling argument is inconsistent: If the catch of whales is small enough not to negatively affect whale stocks, it is also too small to positively affect fish stocks. To make more fish available, they say, more whales will have to be killed, putting populations at risk. Whalers argue that the purpose of culling is to keep populations in check, not to put populations at risk.
Professor Daniel Pauly ([7]), Director of the Fisheries Center at the University of British Columbia weighed into the debate in July 2004 when he presented a paper to the 2004 meeting of the IWC in Sorrento. Pauly's primary research is the decline of fish stocks in the Atlantic, under the auspices of the Sea Around Us Project. However, this report was commissioned by Humane Society International, an active anti-whaling lobby. The report stated that although cetaceans and pinnipeds are estimated to eat 600 million tonnes of food per year, compared with just 150 million tonnes eaten by humans (*), the type of much of the food that cetaceans eat (in particular, deep sea squid and krill) is not consumed by humans. Moreover, the reports says, the locations where whales and humans catch fish only overlap to a small degree. In an interview with the BBC, Pauly stated that "The bottom line is that humans and marine mammals can co-exist. There's no need to wage war on them in order to have fish to catch. And there's certainly no cause to blame them for the collapse of the fisheries. It's really cynical and irresponsible for Japan to claim that the developing countries would benefit from a cull of marine mammals. It's the rich countries that are sucking the fish out of the poor countries' own seas." In the report Pauly also considers more indirect effects of whales' diet on the availability of fish for fisheries. He continues to conclude that whales are not a significant reason for diminished fish stocks.
However, the dietary behaviour of whales differ among species as well as season, location and availability of prey. For example, sperm whales' prey primarily consists of mesopelagic squid. However, in Iceland, they are reported to consume mainly fish (Sigurjónsson, et al 1998). Minke whales are known to eat a wide range of fish species including krill, capeline, herring, sand lance, mackerel, gadoids, cod, saithe and haddock (Haug et al, 1996). Minke whales are estimated to consume 633,000 tons of Atlantic herring per year in part of Northeast Atlantic (Folkow et al, 1997). In the Barents Sea, it is estimated that a net economic loss of five tons of cod and herring per fishery results from every additional Minke Whale in the population due the fish consumption of the single whale (Schweder, et al, 2000).
- Sigurjonsson, J. and G. A. Vikingsson (1997). Seasonal Abundance of and Estimated Food Consumption by Cetaceans in Icelandic and Adjacent Waters. J. Northw. Atl. Fish.Sci. Vol. 22:271-287
- Haug, T., Lindstrøm, U., Nilssen, K.T., Røttingen, I. And Skaug, H.J. 1996. Diet and food availability for northeast Atalantic minke whales, Balaenoptera acutorostrata. Rep. int. Whal. Commn
- Folkow LP, Haug T, Nilsen KT, Nordøy ES (1997) Estimated prey consumption of minke whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata in Northeast Atlantic waters in 1992-1995. Document ICES CM 1997/GG:01.
- Schweder, T., Hagen, G.S. and Hatlebakk, E. 2000. Direct and indirect effects of minke whale abundance on cod and herring fisheries: A scenario experiment for the Greater Barents Sea. NAMMCO Scientific publications
- BBC News report on Pauly's findings
(*) These are Pauly's figures. Researchers at the Institute for Cetacean Research gave figures of 90m tonnes for humans and 249-436m tonnes for cetaceans. Reference [8]
References
- High North Alliance pro-whaling group homepage
- WhaleWatch anti-whaling group homepage
- Greenpeace - anti-whaling site
- "For watching or eating, Neither side gives ground in the battle over commercial whaling", The Economist July 26th 2001.
- BBC News report over Iceland's resumption of whaling
- BBC News report on the Whalewatch claims that the method of killing is inhumane
- Catch statistics for whales caught in Norwegian waters by Norwegians 1939-2000
- List of research papers submitted by Japan´s ICR to the scientific committee of the IWC
- World Council of Whalers - Pro Whaling NGO
- " A bloody war - Obduracy in the face of hypocrisy" The Economist Dec 30th 2003
- Australian Whaling History
- Melville, H., The Whale. London: Richard Bentley, 1851 3 vols. (viii, 312; iv, 303; iv, 328 pp.) Published October 18, 1851. (later re-published in New York as Moby-Dick)
External links
- Online Documentary about the whale hunters of Lamalera
- Kieran Mulvaney (2003). The Whaling Season: An Inside Account of the Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
- Christmas 2005: Greenpeace confronts Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean
- Christmas 2005: Open Letter to Greenpeace Japan from The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research ( PDF )
See also
- International Whaling Commission
- North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission
- Institute of Cetacean Research, Japan
- High North Alliance
- World Council of Whalers
- Fisheries management
- Fishery
- New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
- Seal huntingTemplate:Link FA
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