TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

Relevance of ethical review to whaling conducted under the auspices of
science
Whaling for scientific purposes is permitted under Article VIII of the International Convention for the
Regulation of Whaling (see chapter 6). Any proposal for lethal scientific research on whales (‘scientific
whaling’) must be submitted to the Scientific Committee of the IWC for review. This Committee
consists of scientists from contracting governments to the IWC, and invited scientists from other
nations, with the necessary expertise to assess the validity of research projects.
A requirement of the review is that “an evaluation of the likelihood that the methodology will lead to
achievement of the scientific objectives” is carried out (as per requirements laid out in the Report of the
International Whaling Commission 36, 133). Any contracting government can submit such a proposal.
Scientific reviews of proposals are carried out by the Scientific Committee, and involve lengthy review
and comment upon the initial proposals, interim results of long-term projects, and analyses of the
validity of results from finished projects. However, at no point is an ethical review of the proposal
conducted, although the IWC has acknowledged the validity of an ethical review process. In 1998 a
resolution was passed requesting that the Secretariat of the IWC conduct a comprehensive review of
ethical considerations applied in other international scientific organisations (IWC 1999a). The
Secretariat’s review led to the general conclusion that existing international ethical guidelines stress that
research should aim to cause “the minimum of stress and distress, suffering and pain, and at the same
time considering if the research results can be achieved using fewer animals or by other (non-lethal) means”
(IWC 1999b).
Were an ethical review to be carried out on Japan’s and Iceland’s whaling proposals, a number of issues
of relevance would emerge (see Table 2). Concerns have regularly been raised by some members of the
Scientific Committee as to the likelihood of the lethal research proposals actually achieving their aims.
Some scientists in the Scientific Committee have criticised Japan’s research programmes, stimulating
repeated debate on the scientific validity of the studies (IWC 1999c, IWC 2000, IWC 2001, IWC
2003b).
In 2003, Iceland presented its first proposal for scientific permit whaling in 14 years and various views
were expressed, including the statement that “this proposal is inadequate especially in its description of
sample sizes” and “concerns were raised regarding the adequacy of the sampling scheme to meet the
intended objectives” (IWC 2003c, p.48-49). In fact, Icelandic scientists acknowledged that the sample
sizes in their proposal for lethal research may not be adequate to resolve all of the objectives of the
project (IWC 2003c, Annex Q, p.11).
When doubt is so clearly cast upon the validity of a scientific proposal and its ability to achieve its aims,
then the lethal take of any animals is likely to be judged as unethical. Additionally, if the specified
number of animals to be used will not achieve a conclusive result, then the research proposal must be
seen as flawed. An ethical approval permit would not be issued for this work in other areas of animal
research.
A number of non-lethal methods are regularly used to address questions similar or identical to those
proposed in the permit whaling programmes. Non-lethal biopsy sampling is widely used to collect small
plugs of tissue from live cetaceans. A technique for ‘scrubbing’ a cetacean’s skin is also used to collect
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