THE world edged closer to resuming commercial whaling last week, amid growing claims that whale stocks have recovered sufficiently during the 18-year moratorium to make a sustainable harvest possible. But marine biologists have told New Scientist that the move is premature. They say whale stocks are still low, and far too little is known about pre-industrial whale populations and the place of whales in marine ecosystems to make hunting safe.
The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Sorrento, Italy, last week agreed to begin drawing up rules for a possible resumption of commercial whaling. The hunt would be limited by quotas, inspectors would accompany whaling ships and a DNA database would ensure that only legally caught whale meat could be sold.
At the last moment, the 57 governments that make up the IWC shied away from setting a date. But they did agree to 鈥減roceed expeditiously鈥� to completing the rules for a sustainable whale harvest, known as the Revised Management System, in time for its 鈥減ossible鈥� adoption at the next meeting in South Korea next year.
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Environmentalists were pleased with the outcome, having defended gains made last year when the IWC effectively transformed itself from a club of whalers into a club of whale conservationists. 鈥淥verturning the moratorium was mooted, and that was resisted,鈥� said Margi Prideaux, of the UK鈥檚 Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
But whaling nations such as Japan and Norway believe they are slowly but surely making inroads with their argument that the 1986 moratorium has done its job in saving species from imminent extinction. They argue that the meeting was hypocritical, accepting the science of sustainable whaling while backing away from the politics needed to give it the green light. But most researchers New Scientist spoke to this week say the science supports a continued moratorium.
鈥淢ost whale populations are far below historical levels,鈥� says Andy Rosenberg of the University of New Hampshire, a coordinator of the international research programme, History of Marine Animal Populations. 鈥淚 think there may be real harm in keeping whale numbers suppressed, and allowing an industry to rebuild.鈥�
The Revised Management System is intended to model how many whales can be killed without damaging overall numbers. But it is based on whale populations today and ignores both the size of historical populations and the role of whales in marine ecosystems, says Charles Scott Baker of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who this month published a critical review of whaling models (Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol 19, p 365).
Baker says there are still huge uncertainties about both, and many species have barely begun to recover from two centuries of over-exploitation. There is even great uncertainty about those species believed to be recovering.
For instance, some estimate that sperm whales have recovered to their historic levels of around 600,000. But Baker estimates they once numbered more than a million animals, and today鈥檚 population is just a third of that.
But Japan is impatient to resume whaling, and is angry that the IWC is refusing to allow it to take 2900 minke whales from the southern ocean sanctuary as part of its 鈥渟cientific鈥� whaling programme. 鈥淭he Antarctic has the most abundant whale populations in the world,鈥� says Japan鈥檚 IWC commissioner Minoru Morimoto. 鈥淥ur proposal was to demonstrate how these resources should be managed.鈥�
Baker argues that whale populations in the region are still in the early stages of recovery, and that whale numbers should be allowed to recover unimpeded until we are sure they have returned to natural levels. 鈥淓ven under optimistic assumptions, recovery is likely to take decades for some species and more than a century for others,鈥� he says.
