ENVIRONMENT: Conservationists Demand Protection for Whales

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 13 1998 (IPS) - The threat of extinction hangs over the heads of six of the world’s 11 large whale species, said a statement from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) calling for an international moratorium on hunting.

WWF said the International Whaling Commission (IWC) must regain control over the hunting of these mammals in their annual meeting next week.

Elizabeth Kempf, a WWF specialist, called on the IWC conference, to be held in Oman from May 16 to 20, to adopt “other urgent actions which could help save the whales.”

In their report for the conference in Oman, entitled “Wanted Alive. Whales in their natural environment,” Kempf stated one possible measure would be a strict ban on the international trade in whale meat.

The study identified three countries, Russia, Japan and Norway, as responsible for the killing of more than 18,000 whales since the moratorium was imposed diring the 1985-86 season.

But Japan offers the most attractive legal internal whale meat market for the whaling countries.

Reasearch by the Traffic organisation and funded by WWF in 1997, proved that despite one short blip, whale meat prices have remained very high.

One kilogram of whale meat in Japan was bringing in between 30 and 280 US dollars, far higher than the market price in Norway.

And the killing continues despite the moratorium on hunting for commercial ends and the declaration of the Atlantic as a virtual sanctuary.

The Artic whale is one of the most seriously threatened of the larger species, apparently with little chance of recovery.

Meanwhile, the biggest of all mammals ever seen on the Earth, the blue whale (more than 30 metres long), native to the southern hemisphere, does not appear to be recovering either, and there are only 500 individuals left.

There were some 250,000 blue whales in the Antartic Ocean before commercial hunting began in the 19th century.

By 1997, Japan had killed more than 3,600 whales allegedly for scientific ends – in line with the only legal way round the 1985- 86 moratorium – while Norway, Iceland and South Korea also carried out scientific hunting programmes.

WWF specialists have repeatedly stated there is nothing more to be learned by killing whales.

Russia and Norway maintain their objections to the moratorium, exempting them from fulfilling it. The former Soviet Union ended commercial hunting at the close of the 1986-87 Artic season. Meanwhile, Norway has killed whales every year, except for 1991.

Kempf said Norway killed 164 whales for declared scientific ends between 1988 and 1992. But Norwegian their commercial captures increased notably over the last decade.

The study claimed Norway has been rapidly increasing the number of whales caught each year, despite the IWC resolutions.

The WWF researcher also recommended the IWC take other protection measures, including the reduction of marine pollution.

The white whale of the San Lorenzo river in Canada, has been so seriously poisoned that the bodies of these mammals have to be disposed of in the same way as toxic waste, said Kempf.

She stressed the success of whaling tourism in recent years in Argentina, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.

Some seven million people have taken part in whale observation excursions, generating income of 500 million dollars in 1994 alone.