05 Mar 2008
- Japan would do better whale research by
not killing whales, said WWF on the eve
of a key International Whaling Commission
planning meeting.
WWF delegation head,
International Species Programme Director
Dr Susan Lieberman, called on Japan in particular
to recognise that science had moved a long
way since a provision allowing governments
to issue lethal research permits was written
into the International Convention for the
Regulation of Whaling (ICRW).
The 61 year old provision
is the basis of Japan's so-called scientific
whaling programme, which “produces meat
but not answers,” Dr Lieberman said.
“At that time, killing
whales was the only way to learn some of
the most basic biological information, some
of which was then used to set catch quotas,”
Dr Lieberman said. “Today, much more plentiful
and reliable information is available using
the many better new ways of collecting whale
data rather than much the same old ways
of killing them.
“What sort of scientific
enterprise is it that uses the most outdated
methodologies to produce little published
data, few insights into whales and negligible
useful whale management information?”
For the International
Whaling Commission Intersessional meeting,
starting in London tomorrow (March 6), WWF
is calling on Japan “to stop abusing the
special whaling permit provision of the
ICRW by conducting commercial whaling under
the guise of research”.
“The Contracting Governments
of the IWC must ensure that IWC-related
research meets modern accepted scientific
techniques, so that the IWC’s credibility
on this issue is maintained,” Dr Lieberman
said. “The continued abuses of Japan’s whaling
programme are an affront to legitimate science.”
Look at non-whaling
threats to whales
In its statement to
the meeting, WWF is also urging contracting
governments to “look more closely and consistently
at the non-whaling threats to whales”.
Whales face general
threats from habitat degradation and climate
change, as well as more specific challenges
such as being deafened or displaced by the
operations of the oil and gas exploration
and development industry, or being caught
up and discarded as bycatch by the fishing
industry.
“The greatest threat
to many cetacean species is bycatch, with
estimates showing that more than 300,000
whales and dolphins are killed in fishing
gear each year,” Dr Lieberman said. “Only
through swift and cooperative international
action to reduce bycatch will some critically
endangered cetacean populations be saved.”
WWF's new bycatch initiative
is highlighting the existence of practical,
innovative fishing gear designs to reduce
bycatch.
Populations of nearly
all the great whales remain at depressed
levels, a legacy of the unsustainable whaling
during the last two centuries.
As long-lived mammals
with slow reproductive cycles whales inevitably
take several decades or more to recover
from population depletion while some populations
still survive as a few hundred individuals
at the brink of extinction.
WWF’s goal is to ensure
that viable populations of all cetacean
species occupy their historical range, and
fulfill their role in maintaining the integrity
of ocean ecosystems.
