Whaling

Whaling is the hunting and killing of whales. Historically, poor conservation management by many nations led to far more whales being killed than could be sustained and to near extinction of several species. Whales are killed by firing a harpoon near the head of the animal. An explosive charge inside the harpoon then explodes beneath the whale's skin, killing it.

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 for food. The past mismanagement of whale stocks has depeleted the overall whale population to a significant extent and four species of whale are still endangered. As the graph to the right indicates, the conservation status of whales are strongly correlated with the past hunt. 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 on them in the 1960s.

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Other species on the other hand, 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, believing that with modern techniques a hunt of these species could be sustained without damage to the ecosystem.

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Because those opposed to whaling believe that a return to full-scale commercial whaling will lead to economic concerns overriding those of conservation, 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.

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Another argument that pervades the debate over whaling is the incompetence of the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee to actually establish what is a "sustainable" catch limit for whales. Over time, attempts to do it "scientifically" have resulted in utter failure leading to the depletion of all species and stocks targeted. This is mainly due to the preference of the "whaling scientific etsablishment" at the IWC for complex theoretical formulas that do not consider actual biological parameters of most species - simply because these are usually incomplete or unavailable.

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A complete list of whale conservation statuses as listed by the 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, whilst not regarded as separate species, are considered sufficiently genetically different to warrant conserving each.

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Further considerations outside of the mere number of specimens required for the species to survive involve the whale's position as pinnacle in the food chain. What effect they have on the ocean's system is not fully known. As little as 10 years ago was it first discovered how whales sleep (vertically). In a BBC documentary 'Blue Planet', a small glimpse was seen of the whale's impact as a source of food. The corpse of a whale feeds large numbers of fish, in the thousands, from groups of sharks to small bottom feeders, lasting from several months to a year.

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Extinct

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Critically Endangered

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Endangered

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Vulnerable

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Lower Risk

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(Conservation Dependent)

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Lower Risk

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(Near Threatened)

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Lower Risk

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(Least Concern)

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Gray Whale North-east Pacific population

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• Blue Whale
  intermedia subspecies
• Fin Whale
• North Pacific Right Whale
• North Atlantic Right Whale
• Sei Whale

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• Beluga
• Blue Whale
  musculus subspecies - Atlantic population
• Humpback Whale
• Sperm Whale

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• Antarctic Minke Whale
• Arnoux's Beaked Whale
• Baird's Beaked Whale
• Blue Whale
  musculus subspecies - Pacific population
• Bowhead Whale
• Gray Whale
  Northeast Pacific population
• Northern Bottlenose Whale
• Southern Bottlenose Whale
• Short-finned Pilot Whale
• Southern Right Whale

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• Minke Whale

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• Dwarf Sperm Whale
• Pygmy Right Whale
• Long-finned Pilot Whale
• Pygmy Sperm Whale
• Melon-headed Whale

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Additionally the IUCN notes that the Atlantic population of Gray Whales was made extinct early around the turn of the eighteenth century.

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Organic growth; Method of killing

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 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 whalers because the whale can take several minutes 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. Troubled Waters is available here in PDF format. Whalers also say that this free roaming lifestyle followed by a quick death is less cruel than the long-term suffering of battery farmed animals also used to provide food.

Related Topics:
Explosive - Harpoon - Big game hunters - PDF

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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. A High North article on the issue

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The economic argument

Many researchers say that the whales that are killed 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, 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 unfinished. Naturally 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.

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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.

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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 in developed countries.

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However, many developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina and South Africa argue that whalewatching, a growing billion-dollar industry, provides more revenue and more equitative distribution of profits than the possible resumption of commercial whaling by pelagic fleets from faraway developed countries. These countries are defending their right to the non-lethal use of whale resources and refuse to bow to the pressures of the whaling industry to allow the resumption of commercial whaling in their regions.

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In particular, not a single 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 under the guise of " scientific catches".

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Intelligence

The issue of the extent of cetacean intelligence is also hotly debated. Anti-whaling campaigners and nations say that cetaceans are amongst the most intelligent of all non-humans and thus it is morally wrong to kill them for food. However, those in favour of whaling point out that pigs are also amongst the most intelligent of mammals and say that it thus inconsistent to claim that pigs should be used for food, and whales not, other considerations notwithstanding. Thus, in the view of pro-whalers, if whaling is rejected on grounds of intelligence, then so should the eating of other animals leaving vegetarianism as the only option. High North Alliance view on whaling ethics

Related Topics:
Cetacean intelligence - Pig

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Most of the research on cetacean intelligence has consisted of behavioral inference tests carried out on dolphins. For example, Bottlenose Dolphins are able to recognize their 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. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to duplicate these types of tests for whales.

Related Topics:
Dolphin - Bottlenose Dolphin - Ferret - Dog

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Fishing

Whalers say that whaling is an essential condition for the successful operation of commercial fisheries, and thus 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 eats 10 kg fish meat per kg, which puts a heavy predation pressure on commercial species directly or indirectly. Thus whalers say that an annual cull of whales is needed in order that fish 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 impact overall whale numbers, it is also too small to affect fish numbers. Thus to make more fish available, they say, more whales will have to be killed to put populations at risk. The whalers argue that the purpose of culling is to keep populations in check not to put populations at risk.

Related Topics:
Cod - Capelin - Barents Sea - Minke Whale

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Professor Daniel Pauly (credentials) and Director of the Fisheries Centre 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 investigating the reasons for the decline in fish stocks in the Atlantic, under the auspices of the Sea Around Us Project. However this report was commissioned by the Humane Society International, one of anti-whaling lobbies. The report says that although cetaceans and pinnipeds are estimated to eat 600m tonnes of food per year, compared with just 150m tonnes eaten by humans (*), the type much of the food that cetaceans eat (in particular deep sea squid and krill) is not eaten by human. 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 said "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 whale eating on the availability of fish for fisheries. He continues to conclude that whales are not a significant reason for diminish fish stocks.

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However, the dietary behaviour of whales differ among species as well as season, location and availability of prey. For example, Sperm Whales's prey species are in general dominated by mesopelagetic squid. However, in Iceland, they are reported to consume mainly fish (Sigurjónsson, et al 1998). Minke Whales are known to eat wide range of species including krill, capeline, herring, sand lance, mackerel, but gadoids, cod, saithe and haddock (Haug et al, 1996). Mink Whales are estimated to consume 633,000 tons of Atlantic herring per year in part of Northeast Atlantic (Folkow et al, 1997). Net loss of five tones of cod and herring fishery per an extra mink whales are estimated to result in Barents Seas. (Schweder, et al, 2000)

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• Sigurjónsson, J. and Víkingsson, G.A. 1998. Seasonal abundance of and estimated prey consumption by cetaceans in Icelandic and adjacent waters. J. Northw. Atl. Fish. Sci.
• 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 http://www.icrwhale.org/eng/56Estimation.pdf

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