TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

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humanitarian purposes the time taken to inflict death must be regarded as the significant factor”. The working party considered and discounted the possibility of developing quicker and surer methods of killing whales involving drugs, carbon-dioxide gas and electricity, but agreed that a combination of explosive harpoon and electricity “might provide a speedier method of killing.” (IWC 1961). Welfare and the ICRW Although some IWC members still argue that the ICRW does not provide the IWC with a direct mandate to address humane killing, the Convention grants the Commission competence to make binding regulations that are “based on scientific findings”. The text states: “The Commission may amend from time to time the provisions of the Schedule by adopting regulations with respect to the conservation and utilisation of whale resources, fixing… (e) time, methods, and intensity of whaling… (f) types and specifications of gear and appliances which may be used” (ICRW, Article V, 1946). Moreover, Article VI states that the commission may “make recommendations to any or all contracting governments on any matters which relate to whales or whaling.” These articles have subsequently provided IWC members concerned about the welfare of hunted whales with a means to try to prohibit the use of certain killing methods. Despite this, little was achieved before 1980 that directly improved the humaneness of whaling operations because the rules governing the killing of whales were focussed on improving efficiency and reducing wastage rather than improving animal welfare. Although serious questions regarding the cruelty involved in whaling were put to the IWC as early as the 1950s, it took 30 years before the ‘cold’ or non-explosive harpoon was finally banned for all species by the 1982/83 season 3 (Table 1). Welfare and the moratorium In 1972, international concern over the plight of the whales was raised at the UN Conference on the Environment, held in Stockholm. It called for an immediate ten-year moratorium on whaling and the ‘strengthening’ of the IWC, which was, at that time, dominated by whaling interests. By 1982, many countries had heeded the UN’s call a decade earlier and had joined the IWC to support a moratorium on commercial whaling. Many of these cited the cruelty of whaling as a reason for their decision. Rather than introduce a moratorium, the IWC responded to the UN by adopting the ‘New Management Procedure’ (NMP) in 1975, to regulate the industry. However, the NMP did not include any new welfare provisions. The previous year, the IWC Scientific Committee considered a paper by Peter Best of South Africa on ‘Death Times for Whales killed by Explosive Harpoons’ (Best 1974). He argued that it was unlikely to be possible to reduce times to death by any other device than the explosive harpoon because of “....the practical difficulties associated with consistently scoring a lethal hit on an unrestrained target from a moving platform.” The Scientific Committee recommended that the commission seek advice from experts to “examine ways of improving the efficiency of existing methods” (IWC 1975a). The following year there had been little progress, but significantly, the Scientific Committee recommended that: “criteria should be established for judging the humaneness of killing” and that “....the rapidity with which the whale is rendered unconscious and killed is the most important factor, both from the humane and commercial point of view” (IWC 1975b). In 1977, a proposal that the number of harpoons used to kill whales should be reported was not adopted by the Commission (IWC 1977). THE IWC AND WHALE WELFARE 31
32 A REVIEW OF THE WELFARE IMPLICATIONS OF MODERN WHALING ACTIVITIES In 1978, another attempt to obtain data on the number of harpoons used and struck and lost rates failed, but the Commission agreed a resolution calling for information to be reported on “...time to death from the time struck, and the reliability of the killing device” (IWC 1979a). The Commission also accepted the Scientific Committee’s recommendation for a research programme into humane killing. However, a sub-committee on ‘humane killing techniques’ concluded that the explosive harpoon was still the most humane killing method available (IWC 1979b). In 1979, the working group considered reports on whale killing from expert witnesses who were shocked by what they had observed (IWC 1980). The Commission adopted various recommendations to collect more data on killing times and planned to convene a ‘workshop to consider more humane methods’. In 1980, the IWC held its first ‘Workshop on Humane Killing Techniques for Whales’. It considered reports of killing methods including the use of the electric lance and rifle as secondary killing methods in Japanese and Norwegian operations respectively. The group adopted a working definition that “humane killing of an animal means causing its death without pain, stress or distress perceptible to the animal” (IWC 1980). However, neither the impact of the chase on the individual (see chapter 9) or the impact of the kill upon other group members, were considered because the participants said they lacked the expertise to assess these factors. The issue of how to determine the time of death or unconsciousness in whales was also raised. However, attention focussed on developing a penthrite explosive grenade that could be used during minke whaling, instead of either the cold harpoon, which resulted in protracted times to death, or the black powder explosive grenade which spoilt more of the meat (chapter 2). Japan reported to the workshop that whales might die “...within 4 to 5 minutes after the start of electrocution” and Norway reported that three or four rifle shots were needed to kill some whales that had already been harpooned (IWC 1981). It was clear from the data presented that whales were suffering extensively in whaling operations and particularly from the use of ‘cold’ harpoons. This sparked a debate that led to a UK proposal to ban the use of the ‘cold’ or non-explosive harpoon to kill all whales except minke whales. Australia proposed that the ban be extended to include minke whales by 1982 (although this did not come into effect until the 1982/83 pelagic and 1983 coastal seasons). In a landmark decision the IWC agreed to the ban (although, subsequently several countries filed objections to the ban 4 ) and the significance of this decision reverberates to this day. This was the first time that the IWC had acted to improve the humaneness of whaling by outlawing the use of a specific killing device. The IWC had, de facto, accepted competence for humane killing, a fact the whalers refute to this day. Although the moratorium on commercial whaling was eventually adopted in 1982, the cruelty issues within whaling were still not comprehensively addressed by the IWC. In 1984, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) endorsed the ‘Global Plan of Action for the Conservation, Management and Utilization of Marine Mammals’, which called for: “Ensuring that any exploitative or low consumptive use of marine mammal populations is conducted in a humane manner....”. The IWC considered the UNEP plan that year and again “endorsed its implementation” (IWC 1985). However, the Commission did not at that time join the Planning and Consultative Committee (PPC) charged with implementing the plan, due to objections raised by some contracting governments.
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Appendix II Colour plates ©Mark Vo
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Figure 13. Processing minke whales
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