Tag: International Whaling Commission

Iceland Resumes Whaling

In August, Iceland resumed limited whaling for “scientific” purposes.

At this summer’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission, Iceland had floated a proposal that would have allowed it to kill more than 200 whales annually for scientific research purposes along the same lines as Japan’s current whaling efforts.

That proposal was soundly rejected. However, when Iceland rejoined the International Whaling Commission a couple years ago, it stipulated that it reserved the right to pursue small-scale scientific research whaling. Coming off the defeat of its proposal for scientific whaling, Iceland informed IWC members in August that it would kill 38 minke whales as part of its research efforts.

The move was widely condemned in anti-whaling nations. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, for example, said of the move,

We’re extremely disappointed with Iceland’s decision to begin a lethal research whaling program, which anticipates taking 38 minke whales. Although the program is technically legal under the Whaling Convention, we’ve said many times that lethal research on whales is not necessary and the needed scientific data can be obtained by well-established, non-lethal means.

The taking of whales by Iceland will likely trigger a review by the Department of Commerce of Iceland’s lethal scientific whaling process program for possible certification under the Pelly Amendment.

Under the Pelly Amendment, a finding that Iceland’s scientific whaling program is undermining international conservation efforts aimed at sustaining the population of minke whales could result in bans on the importation of goods from Iceland (don’t hold your breath for that to happen, however).

Iceland’s representative to the International Whaling Commission, Stefan Asmundsson, told the Associated Press that his country expected to encounter a lot of opposition to its resumption of whaling,

We knew beforehand there would be countries who would object and we knew that this research was going to cost us a lot of money to carry out. Regardless of these facts, we believe that it is so important that we simply cannot afford not to do it.

There has been some talk of consumer boycotts of products from Iceland, but polls within that country suggest that upwards of two-thirds of the people there support the resumption of whaling.

This could be the precursor to something even bigger. Many observers did not expect Iceland to resume whaling at all until after 2006, when Iceland has said it reserves the right to resume commercial whaling.

If Iceland does decide to resume whaling in 2006, the anti-whaling forces in the IWC will have won a pyrrhic victory. They will have kept the IWC on record as opposing any resumption of commercial whaling, while pushing Iceland and potentially other countries to resume whaling outside of the IWC’s jurisdiction and oversight.

Sources:

Another Contentious International Whaling Commission Meeting

This summer’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission was against contentious as Japan and other pro-whaling nations squared off against anti-whaling nations that saw Japan threatening to leave the organization.

Japan went to the IWC seeking approval to expand its research whaling, which is frequently criticized by environmentalists and anti-whaling nations as being little more than commercial whaling in disguise. In 2002, Japan caught 590 minke whales, 50 Byrde’s whales, 50 Sei whales and 10 sperm whales as part of its research whaling program.

Currently Japan is allowed to harvest 50 Minke whales in its coastal waters, and it sought approval to triple that quota to 150 whales. It also wanted to expand its research whaling program to include catching Byrde’s whales in the northwestern Pacific. Both proposals were turned down solid majorities of the anti-whaling countries.

The IWC did pass a non-binding resolution condemning Japan’s research whaling program and asking it to stop the practice. Japan said it would ignore the resolution.

Meanwhile, anti-whaling countries wanted to establish a new whale sanctuaries in the South Pacific and South Atlantic. Both proposals were blocked by Japan and other pro-whaling countries.

The IWC did manage to approve creation of a new conservation committee to look at ways to expand the IWC’s conservation activities. That angered Japan which threatened to withhold funding for the committee and elicited new threats from Japan to leave the IWC altogether. If it chose to do so, it would no longer be bound by IWC rules.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda was quoted by the Financial Times of London as complaining that the creation of the conservation committee, “goes against the basic goals of the IWC. The issue must be approached from the viewpoint of conservation and use.”

Meanwhile, Iceland continued to move forward with plans to start its own research whaling program modeled on Japan’s program, which further threatens the continuing ban on commercial whaling.

Sources:

Hunt fails to ease frustrations. Hans Greimel, Associated Press, July 10, 2003.

IWC blocks Japan bid to triple coastal whale-hunting quota. Japan Times, June 20, 2003.

Dead porpoises disrupt Berlin whaling meeting. Reuters, June 19, 2003.

Japan helps block proposals for new whale sanctuary. Bayan Rahman and Hugh Williamson, Financial Times (London), June 18, 2003.

Saving the whale, again. Syndey Morning Herald, June 18, 2003.

Japanese whaling bid blocked. The Daily Telegraph (London), June 19, 2003.

Gov’t intends to continue ‘research whaling.’ Japan Times, June 19, 2003.

Have Whales Been Dramatically Undercounted?

The debate over whether or not commercial whaling should resume turns in large measure on the extent to which whale stocks have recovered. Japan, Iceland and other countries argue that the number of whales has recovered enough to resume whaling, while many other countries argue that whale stocks still are not large enough to warrant a resumption of commercial whaling.

In the midst of that, two American researchers used DNA analysis of whales to argue that North Atlantic whales have been drastically undercounted historically. The researchers looked at the genetic variation among hundreds of specimens of whales and from there estimated what the whale population would have had to have been to support the level of genetic variation they saw.

Here’s a table showing the International Whaling Commission’s estimates of the pre-hunting stocks of several whale species compared to new estimates put forth by Stanford’s Stephen Palumbi and Harvard’s Joe Roman,

Species
IWC Estimate
Palumbi/Roman Estimate
Fin 40,000 360,000
Humpbacks 20,000 240,000
Minke 130,000 265,000

The researchers recognize that their claims could have an enormous impact on the decision of whether/when to resume whaling. Palumbi told The Globe and Mail,

Humpback whales, for example, were thought to have numbered about 20,000 in the North Atlantic, and we’re up to about 10,000 now, so at that rate, the IWC could allow countries to start killing humpbacks within the next decade. But if the historic population was really 240,000, as the genetics suggests, then we wouldn’t be able to start whaling for another 70 to 100 years.

Not surprisingly, these numbers came under quite a bit of criticism, the main one being that it seems difficult to account for the extraordinarily high level of killing of whales that would be required if their numbers were actually two to 10 times higher than previously believed (not to mention exactly what apparently millions of whales worldwide were eating that remained in abundance).

Whale biologist Robert Brownell pointed out that one possibility in reconciling the population based on genetic variation with whaling logs and other estimates of actual whales killed is that both numbers may in fact be correct. As Palumbi himself conceded, the technique he and Roman used is not able to estimate what the population of whales was before human hunting began, but rather what the whale population likely was tens of thousands of years ago. As Brownell told The Mercury News, “The main issue is that these estimates may be true, but we don’t know what time period they actually cover.”

As Brownell pointed out, there have been numerous climate and other changes in the last 10,000 years or so that may have drastically reduced whale populations long before human beings began intensively hunting them.

Palumbi, however, says that the technique should be to look at whales and give reliable estimates of their population just 1,000 years ago which would be useful to compare the IWC and other estimates with for accuracy.

Source:

New study revises estimate of early whale population. Glennda Chui, The Mercury News, July 29, 2003.

Gene Study Undermines Whaling Plans. Peter Lavelle, ABC Science Online, July 25, 2003.

Whales once numbered in millions. Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, July 24, 2003.

Whale count wrong, DNA study reveals. Tim Radford, The Guardian (UK), July 25, 2003.

Iceland Announces Plans to Resume Whaling

Iceland announced in April that it plans to renew whaling under the same pretense as Japan — i.e. that the whaling will be for research. Under the terms of the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, the International Whaling Commission allow its members to kill as many whales as it wants for research purposes.

Iceland says it plans to catch 100 minke whales, 100 fin whales, and 50 sei whales over two years, beginning sometime in 2003 or 2004.

Along with Japan, it would join Norway — which is exempt from the commercial whaling ban and never stopped commercial whaling — as the only three countries killing significant numbers of whales.

Iceland could also begin straightforward commercial whaling at any time, although it says that it will not do so until at least 2006. Iceland left the IWC in 1992, and was readmitted by just a single vote in 2002 (and even then, only because the Swedish represenative to the IWC misunderstood a procedural challenge that allowed the vote to take place). As part of its readmission, it was also allowed to lodge an objection to the 1986 moratorium which, along with Norway, renders it exempt from the moratorium.

Iceland also rejects portions of a number of conventions that deal with whales. It joined CITES in 2000, but objected to the ban on trade in the blue whale. It also objects to the listing of the Northern right whale under the Berne Convention, of which it is also a party. Both objections mean that Iceland is not bound by the terms of those conventions as they apply to those species.

Iceland has apparently worked out a deal with Japan to accept whale products from Iceland, without which there would not be a market for the number of whales Iceland is considering killing.

Sources:

Iceland’s whale hunting plans arouse suspicions. Reuters, April 5, 2003.

Iceland bids to resume whaling. The BBC, April 3, 2003.

Iceland Plans to Catch Hundreds of Large Whales. Environmental News Service, April 4, 2003.

Iceland Restored to International Whaling Commission

In a stunning turnaround due in large part to a misunderstanding over procedural maneuvers, the International Whaling Commission voted 19 to 18 this month to readmit Iceland.

Iceland quit the commission in 1992 and has had its efforts to rejoin the commission blocked by countries angered at Iceland’s plan to recommence commercial whaling in 2006. According to the New York Times, Iceland’s readmittance was largely the result of the Swedish delegation misunderstanding a procedural challenge by Antigua and Barbuda. In its confusion, the Swedish delegation ended up mistakenly voting in favor of a motion that led to Iceland’s readmission.

“We were not prepared in substance to accept Iceland as a member,” Carl Erik Ehrenkronoa of the Swedish Foreign Ministry told the Times, “but it happened anyway.”

As the Times notes, whaling countries are using the same tactics that anti-whaling forces used to enact the worldwide ban on whaling. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, numerous anti-whaling countries joined the commission and the result was the ban.

Now Japan and other pro-whaling countries are encouraging (and, in some cases, outright bribing them) to join and tip the scales the other way. In the lead up to the ban, it was countries such as Switzerland and Austria who joined and tipped the balance toward the ban on whaling. Now countries like Benin, Gabon and Mongolia are joining, and all are solidly in the pro-whaling camp thanks to Japan’s promises of aid to such countries in exchange for their votes on the commission.

Iceland’s readmittance is a likely turning point, given that Iceland says that in 2006 it will join Norway in openly defying the worldwide ban on commercial whaling.

Overturning the ban on whaling is a long way off, given that it would take a 3/4 vote of the commission, but Rune Frovik, spokesman for a Norwegian whaling association told the Times that there was still a lot of value in just a simple majority,

You can do a lot with a simple majority. For many years, the commission has passed what we call hate resolutions calling on Norway and Japan to stop whaling. Soon they might not be able to pass those resolutions.

This change should make the next meeting of the IWC a bit more interesting.

Source:

Iceland joins whale panel, giving whalers stronger say. Walter Gibbs, The New York Times, October 20, 2002.

Animal Rights Groups Fail to Stop Makah Whale Hunt

For the second time in recent months, animal rights activists have failed to get a permanent injunction to prevent the Makah tribe from conducting a whale hunt this summer.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Burgess denied efforts by The Fund for Animals, Humane Society of the United States, and other groups to obtain an injunction against the whale hunt. Among other things, the groups claim that the hunt violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

At the recent meeting of the International Whaling Commission, the Makah were granted the right to kill up to four whales per year.

Source:

Court Again Rejects Effort To Prevent Whale Hunt. David Fisher, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 8, 2002.