Surfbirds News

Anchorage, Alaska will host the 59th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) between 28 May and 31 May 2007, following three weeks of preliminary scientific and technical meetings.

Last year, for the first time in over 25 years, pro-whaling nations obtained a voting majority within the IWC. They used that majority to pass the St Kitts and Nevis Declaration, which states that the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling is no longer required. This year, they may use that majority to strip whales further of the protection they need.

Key topics for the IWC meeting:

• Will pro-whaling countries be in the majority?
• The renewal of Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quotas
• Japan’s attempts to create a new category of whaling and overturn the ban.
• Attempts to force the IWC to support lifting the ban on international trade in whale meat
• Iceland’s recommencement of commercial whaling

A pro-whaling voting majority at the meeting?

Although many members of the IWC strongly oppose Norway, Iceland and Japan’s whaling in defiance of the ban on commercial whaling, a growing number of pro-whaling countries have joined the Commission over recent years. Many are developing countries, which have no previous interest in whaling. Japan is accused of giving these countries aid in return for support at the IWC.

If Japan retains its pro-whaling majority at the IWC this year, it is likely to try to remove the protection that whales currently receive. It will continue to seek ways to lift, or undermine the ban on commercial whaling. WDCS fears that in its pursuit of a full-scale resumption of whaling, Japan plans to blur the boundaries between Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling and commercial whaling and create a whole new category of ‘traditional’ or ‘cultural’ whaling from which it, and several other countries, currently not whaling, could benefit.

Since the IWC ended last year, a number of new countries have joined or rejoined the IWC. Slovenia, Greece, Costa Rica and Ecuador are now voting members of the IWC and are expected to vote with the conservation-minded block; Nicaragua is expected to join the anti-whaling camp as well. Meanwhile Tanzania has reportedly announced it will join and vote with Japan.

The renewal of Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quotas

Although the IWC imposed a ban on commercial whaling in 1986 it has a policy of allowing certain indigenous peoples to hunt otherwise protected whales to satisfy longstanding cultural and subsistence needs.

This year, all Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quotas are up for renewal and it is likely to be a controversial and time consuming agenda item. Amongst the quotas under discussion is a bowhead whale hunt undertaken by the Alaskan Inuit. Japan has previously used the USA’s need for this quota to bully it into supporting Japan’s request for a coastal whaling quota – at least in principle. With the meeting taking place in Anchorage, Alaska, this is likely to be a key focus for the meeting. For its request to be approved the USA will need the support of three quarters of the IWC’s members, and Japan and its allies hold enough votes to block approval. Japan has denied that it will block the bowhead quota, but it remains to be seen if its numerous allies will remain in line, or if the USA’s other quota application will succeed.

Another controversial issue will be Greenland’s application to renew its Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quota. Greenland seeks an annual tonnage of 540 tonnes of whale meat which is currently met from fin and minke whales. Greenland has indicated that its hunters need to add humpback whales to this quota to meet their subsistence needs, even though they took only 85% of the available quota over the last five years, commercialise a large proportion of the meat and even appear to profit from selling by products such as carved bones as souvenirs to tourists.

Attempts to lift the ban on trade in whale meat

This year, due to an unusual quirk in scheduling, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meets immediately after the IWC. CITES defers to the IWC’s conservation measures concerning whales and, consistent with the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling, has banned international commercial trade in whale meat and other products. Japan is likely to try to manipulate this relationship between the two Conventions and the unusual timing of the meetings works to its advantage.

Firstly, if it gains a majority of votes at the IWC meeting, Japan is expected to adopt an IWC resolution aimed at CITES that advocates a resumption of trade in whale meat.

Japan also wants to open up a new exemption to the commercial whaling ban, called community-based hunting. For over 20 years, Japan has claimed that four of its small whaling towns are suffering hardship as a result of the commercial whaling ban. It has repeatedly asked for them to be granted an emergency relief quota to “alleviate their distress”. The IWC has repeatedly denied the request, arguing that the allocation would be a commercial quota, which is banned by the moratorium. But Japan is likely to try again, perhaps using its bargaining power over the USA regarding Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quotas to gain more votes.

A ban can only work if it is 100% effective. Any new exemption would negate the whole ban – the key aspect that is keeping CITES from allowing trade in whale products to resume. If the IWC begins to dismantle its whaling ban, CITES is more likely to relax its trade prohibitions and the free-for-all that results would be devastating.

Iceland’s return to commercial whaling

Anti-whaling interests at the IWC will also be focused on Iceland, which recommenced commercial whaling in 2006, targeting both minke and fin whales - the second largest animal on earth and an endangered species. Iceland resumed commercial whaling under a legally disputed reservation to the ban, and has already killed seven out of nine fin whales and two out of 30 minke whales in a self-allocated 2006/7 commercial quota. Its whalers have stated their intention to export the fin whale meat to Japan.

Iceland started scientific whaling in 2003 (killing 36 minkes in 2003, 25 in 2004, 39 in 2005 and 60 minkes in 2006). It plans to have killed a total of 200 minke whales for research by the end of the 2007 season. Many IWC members have expressed their disapproval of Iceland’s whaling activities in demarches, and WDCS hopes that they will adopt a strongly worded (albeit non-binding) resolution calling on it to stop.

The Cruelty of Whaling

Due to the inherent difficulties under which whaling takes place, which involves aiming weapons at a moving target on a moving sea from a moving platform, WDCS believes that whaling can never be guaranteed to be humane and that commercial whaling should cease on welfare grounds alone.

Whales that are killed for commercial purposes should be afforded the same level of legislative welfare protection as other animals that are killed for commercial purposes. However, this is not the case and WDCS argues that it is not possible to ensure a humane death for hunted whales, since they can not be humanely secured and stunned before slaughter, or guaranteed an instantaneous death.

Whales that are struck and wounded by a projectile during hunting (usually a harpoon or bullet) are known as ‘Struck and Lost’. ‘Stuck and Lost’ whales are an unacceptable aspect of all whale and dolphin hunts. These animals may escape the initial strike, but will have an unknown fate.

Background information

The commercial whaling ban
In 1982, after centuries of over-exploitation, many whale populations were close to extinction and the International Whaling Commission (a body formed under a 1946 treaty to regulate whaling and conserve whales) agreed to implement a ban, ‘the moratorium’, on commercial whaling.

The moratorium came into effect in 1986 and has, for the most part, been a successful conservation measure: Commercial whaling declined and some (although by no means all) whale populations are slowly recovering. Despite the ban, however, Japan, Iceland and Norway exploit loopholes in the text of the IWC’s founding treaty and collectively kill over 2000 whales each year for commercial purposes. In addition, the IWC permits ‘aborigines’, whose cultural and nutritional need for whales and whaling it recognises, to hunt some species “exclusively for local consumption”.

Scientific whaling
The IWC’s founding treaty allows whales to be killed under ‘special permits’ for scientific research, issued by member governments of the IWC. However, the IWC never intended this provision to be used on a large scale to provide meat for profit and has adopted over 40 resolutions denying the validity and necessity of scientific whaling programmes and calling on Japan and Iceland to stop killing whales using science as a disguise. The resolutions are however non binding and the whaling nations have chosen to simply ignore them.

The ban on international trade in whale products
Norway, Japan and Iceland all hold reservations exempting them from the ban on international trade in whale products imposed by CITES, although none has used their reservation to trade on a commercial scale and Japan refuses to import Norway’s minke meat due to its high levels of contaminants.

CITES met last in October 2004 and rejected Japan’s latest in a long series of attempts to resume international trade in protected whales, confirming that the international community continues to oppose Japan’s attempts to exploit whales for profit.

Japan began whaling on a commercial scale in the 1940’s, after WWII when protein was in short supply. Japan continues to kill whales and sell the meat from its hunts despite the ban on commercial whaling by exploiting a legal loophole which allows whaling for scientific research.

Currently, Japan allocates its whalers annual research quotas for 10 sperm, 100 sei, 50 Bryde’s and 120 minke whales in the North Pacific (60 of which are killed by Small Type Coastal Whalers) and up to 935 minkes and 10 fin whales in an area of Antarctica designated a whale sanctuary by the IWC in 1994 - a total of 1225 whales a year. A hunt of 50 humpback whales plus an increase from 10 to 50 fin whales is scheduled to begin late in 2007.

Japan also kills tens of thousands of small whales and dolphins annually for its domestic market, despite concerns about the impact of the hunts on these populations, the cruel methods used, and the high levels of pollutants found in these species. These hunts are not regulated by the IWC and often supply live dolphins for captivity.

Japan currently sells around 7,500 tons of edible whale meat annually from its ‘scientific’ hunts, hunts of small cetaceans and ‘bycatch’ (entanglement in fishing nets), but the market is declining, prices of whale meat are falling, and thousands of tonnes are held, unwanted, in stockpiles.

The Japanese public views whale meat as an expensive luxury item and not an everyday food. Japan hopes to stimulate the market with the introduction of humpback whale meat from the hunts later this year, as well as promotional sales of items like whale burgers and ice cream, and heavily subsidized sales of whale meat for school lunches.

Norway conducts the world’s largest overtly commercial whale hunt which this year includes the highest self-allocated coastal catch allowance since the country’s return to commercial whaling 14 years ago.

Norway has continued to kill minke whales in the North Atlantic since 1993 through a legal ‘Objection’ lodged against the moratorium in 1982. The ‘objection’ serves to exempt Norway from the ban. Norway has increased its self-allocated quota at an alarming rate in recent years, from 670 in 2004 to 796 in 2005. In 2006 and 2007, Norway awarded itself a massive quota of 1,052 minke whales. Some 32 vessels now have whaling licenses, as three new vessels joined the Norwegian minke fleet in 2007.

In 2007, Norway allocated its quotas differently, allowing 291 more whales to be killed in the easier to reach coastal areas, and lowering the quota for the offshore and remote Jan Mayan area. The move is likely the result of pressure from a struggling industry, which has failed to meet its quota allocations in the harder-to-reach far distant waters. The decision was taken despite concerns over the higher risk of contamination associated with whale meat from coastal populations.

In the last ten years Norwegian whalers have fulfilled their quota only once, in 2001, when the quota was much lower, at 546 minke whales. Debate has raged as to whether the domestic market can sustain the ever increasing quotas. In 2006, the whaling season was suspended for three weeks because whalers could not sell the products from the animals they had already killed. The Government also extended the season to allow the whalers more time to fulfill their quota.

There is almost no market for whale blubber in Norway and thousands of tonnes have accumulated in warehouses. With prices so low for blubber that it is not worth landing, and with exports forbidden by CITES, almost all blubber is now dumped at sea.

Iceland stopped commercial whaling in 1986 having arguably agreed to the moratorium by not taking an objection against the decision like Norway and Japan (originally) did. They did, however, continue to pursue scientific whaling until 1989.

In 1992 Iceland left the IWC and then re-joined in 2002 with a legally disputed reservation against the moratorium. Some countries still do not recognize Iceland’s membership of the IWC. Iceland recommenced scientific whaling in 2003 and commercial whaling in 2006. Iceland has not reported any data from its scientific hunts to the IWC.

Iceland’s 2007 scientific hunt for minkes resumed in April and will continue until June 25th. The commercial minke kill was opened briefly allowing for one vessel, the Njordur KO to kill one whale on May 4th; the commercial hunt was then closed, and will re-open when the scientific hunt is finished on June 25th, and continue until the end of August. The scientific hunt may resume in September.

The domestic market for whale meat in Iceland is very low and historically much of the meat from Iceland’s whaling industry has been exported to Japan. A recent poll indicated that only 1.1% of Icelandic households eat whale meat weekly. Minke whale meat has sold poorly in Iceland since whaling resumed in 2003, and the resumption of a commercial hunt in 2006 will only lead to more difficulties in domestic sales of whale meat.

Iceland has repeatedly stated its interest in re-opening trade in whale products. Both the minke and fin whalers have expressed an interest in exporting meat to Japan and tests are currently being conducted on the fin whale meat to determine if its contaminant levels exceed Japanese restrictions for imported food.

Denmark is one of the countries currently supporting efforts to lift the ban on commercial whaling and it does not oppose the resumption on international trade in whale products. By voting in favour of commercial whaling at the IWC, Denmark is going against the policy of the EU of which it is a member, as well as the majority of the Danish people who oppose commercial whaling.

The Danish government claims that Denmark’s position reflects its desire to bring an end to the impasse between pro- and anti-whaling nations at the IWC by seeking a compromise between them for sustainable whaling. But it is also clearly the result of pressure from its overseas territories, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which both hunt whales and dolphins. Greenland is allocated an Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quota (for nutritional and cultural purposes) by the IWC, whilst the Faroe Islands maintain that its hunt of small cetaceans is outside the remit of the IWC (despite the fact that this hunt includes pilot whales). Both hunts are poorly regulated, and widely believed to be largely unsustainable. WDCS has serious concerns about their conservation and welfare impacts.

Denmark’s support for whaling and trade in whale meat brings it into conflict with the rest of the European Union (EU) which opposes commercial whaling and requires its 27 member states to reach a consensus position on issues relating to CITES. While the EU consistently opposes proposals to resume international trade in whale meat, Denmark always abstains.

Denmark’s pro-whaling stance also brings it into conflict with the views of the majority of the Danish public. An opinion poll conducted in 2006 found that 66% of the Danish population are strongly opposed or opposed to whaling.