TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

It is conceivable that during special permits whaling operations, aspects of the ‘sampling’ methodrender these hunts less humane that conventional commercial whaling. For example, special permitsissued by Japan may allow the use, in certain circumstances, of the cold harpoon 5 , the weapon thatwas banned for commercial whaling by the Commission over 20 years ago as a result of concern overthe protracted times to death which result from its use. Furthermore, Japan has stated that theharpoon is aimed at the thoracic region of the whale during special permit whaling as this provides alarger target area than the head (IWC 1999). It may also be the case that the requirement forpreserving the ear-plugs of whales taken during Japanese special permit whaling may influence thischoice of targeting the harpoon at the thorax and only targeting the head with the rifle duringsecondary killing. In which case, this ‘sampling’ technique may have a negative impact on time todeath.It is now common practice within the scientific community for research involving animals to besubject to independent ethical review. It is also common that this ethical review process should seek,as a key aim, mechanisms for reducing the number of animals involved (chapter 13). Japan andIceland have failed to submit their research to an ethical review process, and have not presented anymechanism for reducing the numbers of animals involved. In fact, the number of animals takenunder special permit by Japan is increasing significantly. The expansion of the JARPN programme toinclude both more individual animals and a greater variety of species does not accord with the basicprinciples of ‘Replacement’, ‘Reduction’ and ‘Refinement’.Special permit whaling presents a unique case, since the products of this research are soldcommercially and thus a degree of economic incentive is implicit. Japan has proved unwilling tosubject the data from its special permit whaling operations to comprehensive peer review. It can beargued that the science of special permit whaling is fundamentally flawed due to the fact thatcommercial, political, social and cultural factors appear to significantly influence the experimentaldesign of this research. The research priorities appear to pivot around justifications for theresumption of commercial whaling, rather than a desire to evaluate the many threats that cetaceanspecies now face. This political drive has been most profoundly felt in Japan’s ‘Whales eat Fish’argument. In simple terms, Japan claims that whales need to be culled in order to reduce theirimpact on global fish stocks, ultimately to benefit human fishers. This is now a primary focus ofmuch of the current research. However, many scientists specialising in ecosystems dispute the validityof Japan’s claims, stating that the biggest single threat to the world’s fish stocks is over-fishing byhumans. Moreover, an IWC Modelling Workshop on Cetacean-Fisheries Interactions concluded thatthe current early state of development of computer models and the existing poor data quality meanthat reliable management advice cannot be given on the impacts of cetaceans on fish, or visa versa, atthis stage (IWC 2002a).WHALING & WELFARE129The future of whalingThere is currently no strict independent monitoring or regulation of whaling activities. There is alsono independent verification of the data collected in relation to welfare. This significantly hindersrobust scientific analysis of the various welfare aspects of whaling activities.It is also possible that whaling may develop further outside of the auspices of the IWC (the onlyinternational body with the relevant mandate). NAMMCO 6 has been developed by the whalingnations in the North Atlantic as a management body (see chapter 7) and Japan has explored the