Whaling

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 921507 29 8
Year 2010

Price: $20.95

  

Whaling
Volume 318, Issues in Society

Unregulated commercial whaling has had a major impact on the world’s whale populations. In spite of a complete commercial whaling ban imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986, whales are still being killed on a daily basis by traditional whaling nations such as Japan, Norway and Iceland. And despite broad global concern for the depleting whale populations, there is still ongoing debate among IWC members over if and how whaling should continue. This book examines the history of whaling and focuses on Australia’s prominent role in trying to secure a compromise from the whaling nations, especially Japan, with whom diplomatic relations have become strained. The book also details Australian and international efforts to protect whales through sanctuaries, research and legal frameworks. Aboriginal subsistence whaling, ‘scientific’ whaling and commercial whaling ... what is entailed in each of these practices? Is there room for political compromise, or do these giants of the ocean need a globally binding conservation commitment to survive in the world’s already over-fished oceans?

Chapter 1: Whaling and Conservation
Whaling today; Scientific permit whaling; Species found in Australian waters; History of whaling in Australia; Australia’s whaling history; History of commercial whaling; Where the whale things are; Government initiates legal action against Japanese whaling; ‘Scientific whaling’ to be tested in court; International protection of whales; Whale protection; Protecting whales and dolphins; Cetaceans legislation; Whale conservation; Whale research; Whale and dolphin watching.

Chapter 2: The Whaling Debate
Something fishy in whaling debate; Leviathan policy blunder unfolds in the southern ocean; Stopping whaling is cultural imperialism; Prime minister must fire in the whaling war; Anti-whalers swimming in hypocrisy; Whale warriors need legal eagles; Rack of lamb: delicious but very cruel; High seas clash inevitable; It’s time whaling became extinct; It’s about more than just whales; The whale hunt that knows no tradition.

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • The rules governing the International Whaling Commission (IWC) are known as the ‘Schedule’. While many decisions in the IWC can be reached by a simple majority (greater than 50%), any change to the Schedule requires a three-quarters majority (75%) in a vote of member nations.
  • The Japanese whaling fleet returned to the Southern Ocean for its 2010 hunt for 850 (+/-10%) Antarctic minke whales and 50 fin whales, although it did not fulfil these quotas.
  • The moratorium on commercial whaling came into force in 1986. Since then a total of 33,561 whales have been killed – 20,248 through the ‘Objection’ loophole and 13,313 in the guise of science (as at the end of the 2008/09 whaling season). All of these whales have made their way to the domestic whale meat market. Japan, Norway and Iceland have all announced their intentions to continue whaling.
  • The Norwegian Government has issued its whaling industry permits for 1,286 minke whales in 2010, the highest in a quarter of a century.
  • Iceland returned to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 2002, having officially left some years earlier in protest over the 1986 commercial whaling ban.
  • At its 2008 meeting, the IWC adopted a new process under which the results from scientific whaling programs will be reviewed, and new proposals evaluated, by a specialist working group.
  • At least 45 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises are found in Australian waters including 10 large whales, 20 smaller whales, 14 dolphins and 1 porpoise.
  • Whaling in Australia commenced in the late 18th century. There is no known history of Aboriginal communities in Australia having hunted whales.
  • Whaling ceased on humpback whales in 1963, and they were protected worldwide in 1965 after recognition of a dramatic global decline in numbers.
  • In 1979 Australia adopted an anti-whaling policy, permanently ending whaling in Australian waters. At the same time Australia started to focus heavily on working towards the international protection and conservation of whales.
  • Despite decades of protection, blue whales remain at about 2% of pre-whaling levels although their numbers appear to be slowly increasing at last.
  • As early as 1792 Sydney Cove was the centre for the profitable whale and seal trade around the southern coasts.
  • The first merchant to export whale products from Sydney was Robert Campbell. Campbell, a scottish merchant, arrived in Sydney in June 1798 hoping to find opportunities for trade.
  • The whaling and sealing industry was quite unregulated, with the result that by the early 1800s whales and seals were well-nigh exterminated.
  • In the 10 years between 1832 and 1841 New South Wales exported whale products worth nearly 2 million pounds.
  • Norway set up whaling companies around the world, and by 1912 controlled most of the world’s whaling.
  • The IWC was set up in 1946 to regulate whaling, for example, to set quotas for how many whales of a particular species could be killed in the next year.
  • Norway has a ban on the export of whale meat, but on 6 April 1996 an attempt to smuggle 6 tonnes of whale meat from Norway to Japan was foiled.
  • During the end of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century many whale species were hunted to the very edge of extinction. Many have still not recovered. The blue whales of the Antarctic are at less than 1% of their original abundance, despite 40 years of complete protection.
  • Australia will initiate legal action in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Japanese ‘scientific’ whaling in the Southern Ocean.
  • Australia is a world leader in the international protection and conservation of whales.
  • In December 2008, the Australian Government announced a comprehensive package of more than $32 million over 6-years for non-lethal whale research and other marine mammal conservation initiatives.
  • The Indian Ocean Sanctuary was an initiative by the Seychelles in its first year as a member of the IWC in 1979.
  • The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was proposed initially by France in 1992 to protect the summer feeding grounds of the Southern Hemisphere great whales and was adopted in 1994 as another area in which whales are protected from commercial whaling.
  • Whales and other cetaceans are protected in Australian waters under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The Act applies to waters beyond 3 nautical miles from the coastline out to a distance of 200 nautical miles.
  • 5 whale species are currently listed as threatened under the EPBC Act. They are the blue whale, humpback whale, southern right whale, fin whale and sei whale.
  • It is also an offence to injure, take, trade, keep, move, harass, chase, herd, tag, mark or brand a whale, dolphin or porpoise in the Australian Whale Sanctuary without a permit.
  • Despite the international ban on whaling over 1,400 whales are still killed every year around the world.
  • All Australian whale research is conducted to ensure minimum disturbance to the animals. Our methods are among the most advanced in the world and prove that whales do not need to be killed for ‘science’.
  • The caution zone for vessels is the area within 300m of a whale and 150m of a dolphin. No more than 3 vessels are allowed within the caution zone at any one time and vessels should operate at no wake speeds within this zone.
  • Older Japanese believe whale meat has saved them from famine. Subsequently, it became a regular item in lunch boxes (obentos), while for many people today whale meat in the form of sushi and other dishes is a special treat.
  • Japanese categorise whales as fish, rather than as mammals, and this is indexed by the fact that the character (kanji) for the whale (kujira) has two parts, the first being the sign for a fish (uo-hen).
  • The Cod Wars between Britain and Iceland entailed a series of confrontations and collisions in the North Atlantic in the 1950s and 70s between British trawlers and Iceland’s coastguard, resulting in Royal Navy warships being dis-patched.
  • Before industrial whaling, its Antarctic population was between 200,000 and 300,000; today, there are perhaps no more than 3,000 of these superlative mammals in the Antarctic region.