Dolphins, Porpoises, and Whales - IUCN

increased since the early 1980s (IWC 1992a, Kishiro and
Kasuya 1993). A recent estimate of abundance for
Japanese coastal waters of the Pacific (north of 30° N and
west of 145° E) is about 37,000 (Miyashita 1993).
More than 60 bottlenose dolphins were killed in a pilot
whale drive at the Faroe Islands in 1991 (Denmark annual
progress report to IWC), but this was an exceptional event.
On the east coast of the United States and in the northern
Gulf of Mexico, large-scale die-offs have occurred that may
be at least indirectly related to pxjllution (Hansen 1992).
The bottlenose dolphin is not an endangered species,
but some populations are certainly depleted and under
immediate threat. These populations need to be closely
monitored. It is the species most often held in captivity,
so problems concerning the welfare of cetaceans in captivity
often center on the bottlenose dolphin. Unregulated
live-capture fisheries can contribute to the depletion of
wild populations. A regime is in place for managing livecapture
operations in the southeastern United States
(Scott 1990), but captures in the Lesser Antilles, mainland
Latin America, and elsewhere are poorly documented
and often unregulated.
White Whale or Beluga
{Delphinapterus leucas)
This circumpolar species was formerly abundant throughout
the Arctic and Subarctic. Its current aggregate ]3opulation
has been estimated at close to 100,000 (IWC 1992a),
but many of the 16 stocks provisionally recognized by the
IWC Scientific Committee have been seriously reduced by
overexploitation.
Four stocks have been identified as "small (500 or less)
and vulnerable to hunting or habitat deterioration"
(Southeast Baffin, Ungava Bay, St. Lawrence River, and
Cook Inlet) and one other as medium sized (500-3,000)
and "exploited at rates that give cause for concern" (East
Hudson Bay/James Bay) (IWC 1992a:186). All of these,
except the Cook Inlet stock, occur principally in Canadian
waters. The Ungava Bay stock is close to extinction but
still hunted (Reeves and Mitchell 1989). An internal committee
in Canada has listed the St. Lawrence River,
Ungava Bay, and Southeast Baffin stocks as Endangered
and the East Hudson Bay/James Bay stock as Threatened
(Campbell 1991). In addition, the eastern High Arctic
stock that is "shared" with Greenland (where it is intensively
hunted) was recently classified by this committee as
Vulnerable (Doidge and Finley in press; see Heide-
J0rgensen 1994). Results of aerial surveys in 1990 and
1991 suggest that the stock has declined by 30% or more
since the early 1980s (Heide-J0rgensen et al. 1993). A
bilateral commission for the conservation of shared beluga
and narwhal stocks was recently created under a memo­
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randum of understanding between Canada and Greenland,
and this commission is expected to develop a hunt-management
regime for stock recovery and maintenance.
In Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, where a large percentage
of the world population of belugas is found, there
is a strong incentive to preserve stocks for the sustainable
benefit of maritime aboriginal hunting communities.
Much concern in eastern Canada is focused on the endangered
St. Lawrence River population, which supports
tourism and provides the rallying symbol for an environmental
clean-up campaign that is badly needed. Political
and economic instability in the Russian Arctic and
Subarctic gives cause for concern about the conservation
status of beluga stocks there. The history of intensive
commercial exploitation, together with the extensive
industrial development that has occurred in the Eurasian
Arctic, all too often with few environmental safeguards,
may mean that some stocks of belugas in the eastern hemisphere
are in trouble as are some in the West.
Narwhal
(Monodon monoceros)
The narwhal is endemic to arctic waters, where three
stocks are provisionally recognized—one centered in
Baffin Bay, one in northern Hudson Bay, and one widely
distributed from East Greenland to the Kara Sea (IWC
1992a, 1993). The Baffin Bay stock, which is heavily
exploited in Greenland and Canada, was recently estimated
at about 34,000 animals (Koski and Davis 1994),
and the Hudson Bay stock (conservatively) at about 1300
(Richard 1991).
The RDB classification of this species as Insufficiently
Known was probably appropriate in the late 1980s.
However, as Cooke (1991:22) noted, better data on population
size and removal rates might justify its reclassification
to Vulnerable status. Information in the RDB on trade
in narwhal tusks was current only through 1985, when
Canada and Greenland successfully opposed a West
German initiative to reclassify the narwhal from CITES
Appendix II (commercial trade unrestricted but subject to
a documentation requirement) to Appendix I (commercial
trade prohibited). Prices of narwhal tusks and edible skin
(muktuk) have increased substantially since 1985 in
Canada (Reeves 1992, 1993) and remain strong in
Greenland (Reeves and Heide-J0rgensen 1994, Heide-
J0rgensen 1994). The system for reporting catches in
Greenland had ceased to be reliable by the late 1980s.
Scientists from Canada have expressed concern that recent
removal rates may not be sustainable (Cosens et al. 1990),
and this concern is shared by both the Canada-Greenland
Joint Commission and the IWC Scientific Committee
(IWC 1993). The Canada-Greenland Joint Commission