Background
The widespread killing of whales in the early to mid-1900s led to their decimation throughout the world's oceans. Recognizing the need to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and to regulate whaling, whaling nations banded together and signed the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), which created the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The continued mass whale killings led to the near extinction of the blue whale and the commercial extinction of many other species. In 1982, the IWC adopted an indefinite moratorium, or ban, on commercial whaling, which was fully implemented by 1986. Japan, Norway, Iceland, and their pro-whaling allies continue to vie for support to overturn the moratorium. In the meantime, they engage in commercial whaling through loopholes in the Convention: reservations and objections to the moratorium and lethal scientific programs. This not only undermines the conservation aims of the IWC, but it is also impairing the Commission's ability to function effectively.
Read about the May 2007 IWC meeting here.
Whales killed since the moratorium on commercial whaling
Since the moratorium on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986, nearly 30,000 whales have been killed, over 23,000 of these by Japan, Norway, or Iceland. Japan and Iceland are killing whales for commercial purposes by exploiting a loophole in the ICRW that permits lethal research. Their lethal research has been condemned by the IWC since Japan’s so-called scientific whaling started in 1987. Norway resumed killing whales in 1993 after registering a formal objection to the ban. In 1992, Iceland quit the IWC after being bound by the ban, only to controversially rejoin ten years later with a reservation declaring themselves not bound by the ban. Iceland began commercially whaling under the guise of science in 2003. When the reservation kicked in, in 2006, Iceland began commercially whaling. The numbers of whales killed in recent years are among the highest since the moratorium went into effect, and they continue to increase.
There is no reason to kill whales
The market for whale meat is shrinking and glutted. According to news reports, Japanese, Icelandic, and Norwegian whalers cannot sell the meat; instead it goes into storage.
- In 2005, slackening demand has pushed Japan's wholesale prices of whale meat down 10-30 percent.
- Of Iceland's catch from scientific whaling in 2003, 62-73 percent of the 37 tons of meat that went to market failed to sell and required frozen storage, despite a 50% price drop.
- After killing seven endangered fin whales in the fall of 2006, Icelandic whalers put 200 metric tons of unwanted whale meat into cold storage. The remaining 179 tons, representing nearly half of the total weight of the whales killed, was discarded in a municipal dump.
- Egregious as Iceland's waste is, its actions are dwarfed by those of Japan, which continues whaling on a massive scale despite having stockpiled nearly 5,000 metric tons (11 million pounds) of unneeded whale meat.
- In Norway demand has fallen short of supply, leading to the country not fulfilling its self-imposed quotas. In 2004 and 2005, its quotas were 670 whales, of which 544 were killed, and 800, of which 639 were killed, respectively.
Hazards of consuming whale products
Eating whale meat may be a health hazard for humans. Whales can accumulate environmental contaminants that bond with fat (blubber), such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and dioxin, and also heavy metals such as methylmercury. The effects on humans who consume contaminated whale meat or blubber can be very serious. These contaminants can cause cancer, nerve damage, reproductive and developmental disorders, immune system suppression, liver damage, skin irritation, and endocrine disruption.
Trumped up arguments to justify killing whales
Japan has been spreading the disproved and self-serving argument that too many whales are eating too many fish and therefore should be culled. There's no question that many of the world's fish populations are in serious decline. However, human overfishing and fisheries mismanagement (which includes industrial fishing fleets capable of removing many tons of fish in a single net) have done this damage, not natural predators. Recent modeling indicates that most food consumed by whales consists of prey types that fisheries do not target. Further, whales consume most of their food in areas where humans do not fish. Broadly culling predators has been discredited by the scientific and credible management communities as an ineffective way to increase prey populations.
Killing whales is inhumane
All methods used for hunting whales cause suffering to the animals. The size of whales, their adaptations for diving, and the conditions at sea make instantaneous insensibility, let alone death, virtually impossible. So individual whales, even when hit with an exploding harpoon, can take at least a few minutes to an hour or more before dying. Sometimes whales are struck and lost at sea where they are likely to suffer a slow, painful death.
Whales are in trouble
Whales face increasing threats:
- Low Reproductive Rates: Whales have naturally low reproductive rates, making many species extremely vulnerable to increasing pressure from whaling.
- Chemical pollution: Modern-day contaminants flowing into all our oceans are literally polluting whales' tissues. Some whale die-offs and strandings are suspected to be caused by immune system failures that result from exposure to certain pollutants.
- Increasing Shipping and Fishing Traffic: Threats include being struck by ships and accidental entanglements in fishing gear.
- Noise Pollution: Marine mammals are highly sound-oriented creatures. Many whales and all dolphins rely on a form of biosonar known as echolocation to navigate, locate prey, avoid predators, communicate, and function in the ocean environment. Whales and dolphins can suffer not only hearing damage when exposed to loud noises, but also other physical and psychological harm. Activities such as oil and gas exploration, the raising and dismantling of oil rigs, active sonar and explosives testing by the military, the use of noisemakers to deter marine mammals from fishing nets and fish pens, marine experiments that involve the use of loud sounds, and the increasing level of engine noise from boat and ship traffic may have far-reaching and long-term debilitating effects on marine mammals, including increased stress and disruptive effects on their communication, social behavior and foraging habits.
With these kinds of pressures threatening the long-term viability of our oceans and their inhabitants, it is irresponsible to add even greater pressure on whales by hunting them for expensive cuts of meat. Yet the numbers of whales being killed now are among the highest since before the moratorium and continue to increase.
What we can do
The Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen's Protective Act provides the United States government with a legal mechanism to apply economic sanctions against countries like Japan that are undermining international fisheries and environmental treaties. HSI/HSUS has called on the U.S. to invoke the Pelly Amendment to enact sanctions against Japan and Iceland for their whaling activities. Though the United States claims to have a firm policy against all commercial and scientific whaling, the government has yet to take a strong stand against it.
Because of whale watching opportunities, whales are more valuable alive than dead. Whale watching is a large and growing industry in many countries, providing an educational and non-consumptive way for people to profit from whales. An effective way to protect whales and coastal communities offering whale watching is to create sanctuaries—areas that provide safe refuge for whales during critical feeding, breeding and calving times. Sanctuaries not only keep whales safe from hunting but also provide a framework for protecting their habitat and ecosystems.
The IWC has created two whale sanctuaries, one in the Southern Ocean (Antarctica) and one in the Indian Ocean. Efforts by member nations to create additional sanctuaries in the South Pacific and South Atlantic have been defeated due to pressure from pro-whaling nations, who are also trying to abolish established sanctuaries. Meanwhile, Japan undermines international law by continuing to kill whales in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary.
The ultimate solution to the current controversy over whaling is to ban the practice entirely. A complete and permanent ban would quell the constant battles over interpretation of International Whaling Commission rules and exceptions and eliminate the looming threat of a resumption of commercial whaling using an uncertain quota system and inadequate monitoring and enforcement. Substitutes for whale products are widely available, so there is no place for commercial whaling in today's economy. Living whales are far more valuable.
CITES
The IWC and its moratorium on commercial whaling work in cooperation with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. CITES has put all "great" whale species on Appendix I, which prohibits international trade in their products. These listings were in response to the species becoming protected by the IWC from commercial whaling.
Japan, unhappy with decisions made at the IWC, tried to move control of the management of whales to CITES by submitting a draft resolution for consideration at the June 2007 meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES. Along with other pro-whaling countries, Japan theorized that if they were able to move some species of whales to the less-restrictive CITES Appendix II—thereby allowing trade in whale parts such as meat and blubber—they would then be free to commence commercial whaling under the auspices of CITES.
If adopted, the proposed draft resolution would have directed the CITES Animals Committee to review the current CITES listing status of all cetaceans covered by the IWC moratorium to assess whether each of these species satisfies the biological and trade listing requirements for listing under Appendix I.
Although the adoption of Japan's draft decision would not have immediately opened up the commercial trade in whales, it would have been a significant step towards doing so.
However, this draft resolution was rejected by the CITES member nations, ending pro-whalers' hopes of opening commercial whaling through CITES.
Updated June 21, 2007
