TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

42
A REVIEW OF THE WELFARE IMPLICATIONS OF MODERN WHALING ACTIVITIES
The IWC has not established any formal criteria for determining when to apply a secondary killing
method to a wounded whale, and the decision, including about which method to use, rests with the
hunter. This means that, in situations where a whale is not lethally wounded by the primary killing
method, it is possible that the hunter may wait some time to see if the whale dies before deciding to
administer a secondary killing method. Cost considerations, and the risk of damaging more, or
higher value, edible tissue, are likely to influence this decision, particularly when the secondary
killing method is a second explosive harpoon. The most commonly only used secondary killing
method is the rifle.
It is of concern that, despite a ban imposed by the IWC on the use of the ‘cold’ (non-exploding)
harpoon 16 , Japan permits the use of a cold harpoon as a secondary killing method on minke, Bryde’s,
sei and sperm whales in its North Pacific whaling operation 17 . The JARPN permit authorises its use
“in order to shorten the time to death of the whale which was struck by an explosive grenade harpoon”.
The adequacy of the rifle as a killing method
It is essential that the goal of a secondary killing method should be to immediately kill, or render
insensible to pain, an already wounded and compromised whale. In order to achieve this, any
secondary killing method will need at least equal or greater power and accuracy than the primary
killing method. When rifles are used as a secondary killing method, the target should be the brain,
since rifles targeted elsewhere are unlikely to produce a swift death. The small amount of data
available on secondary killing methods, largely derived from ASW operations, indicates that rifles
may often be inadequate to kill whales with a single shot (Stachowitsch and Brakes 2003).
In addition to factors related to the morphology of the target whale, the efficiency (and, therefore,
the appropriate choice) of a killing method will also be determined by operational factors relating to
the gunner, vessel and specification of the weapon used. Some of these factors will be within the
control of the gunner, including the power and accuracy of the weapon, the accuracy of the gunner
and his ability to identify and aim at specific external landmarks. Others will be outside his control,
such as the prevailing weather conditions (see chapter 8). A further consideration when choosing
both primary and secondary killing methods (including vessel type) should be species-specific
behaviours. These include the manner in which a species behaves in response to being struck, which
may have significant practical repercussions. For example, if the behavioural response to the stimulus
of a harpoon is to dive (in an attempt to move away from the stimulus), this will have implications
for the choice, and administration, of any secondary killing method (Anon 2003a).
‘Struck and lost’ whales
The failure to land whales that are struck and injured, but not landed, by a whaling operation has
grave welfare implications. It is also a conservation problem, if struck but lost whales do not count
towards the quota established 18 . The schedule has specific requirements for the reporting of these
‘struck and lost’ individuals 19 in commercial whaling operations. Information provided to the IWC
on struck and lost whales commonly reports that either the harpoon pulled out, the forerunner rope
broke, or that the harpoon struck but did not engage properly (Anon 2003b). It is possible that not
all whales that are struck are reported, as in some cases it may be difficult to evaluate whether a whale
has actually been struck, especially when the primary killing method is a rifle as in some Aboriginal
Subsistence hunts.