TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

Table 1. The criteria applied by gunners to judgethe death of whalesCriteriaNumberMotionless 514Slackened jaw 6Slackened pectoral fins 8No reaction to stimulation 1Tensionless harpoon line 9Motionless AND slackened jaw 24Motionless AND slackened pectoral fins 3Motionless and tensionless harpoon line 1Table 1. The criteria that gunners applied to judge the death of whales during the 2000/2001 and2001/2002 Japanese Whale Research Program in Antarctica (JARPA). (All cases of immediatedeath are not included. Ishikawa 2003a).REVIEW OF CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING DEATH AND INSENSIBILITY IN CETACEA87In a further study carried out on captive orcas, pilot whales, beluga and three species of dolphin(Butterworth 2003c), measures adapted from those used to establish the point of death in humanpatients (Pallis 1983, Schlotzhauer et al 2002, Wijdicks 2002) and from those used to assess theefficiency of stunning procedures at slaughter (Kestin et al, 2002), or depth of anaesthesia in surgicalpatients were applied. The following were found to be reliable and reproducible measures ofphysiological state in cetacea: jaw tone, palpebral response, menace response, corneal reflex, vestibuleocularreflex, Ocular / Skin temperature differential, pupillary reflex, capillary refill time, heart rate(with stethoscope). As emphasized in these two studies it can be unreliable to base judgements aboutan animal’s sensibility on only one indicator. For this reason, it was proposed in this study, that asmany indicators as possible should be examined to allow judgments to be ‘broad based’, anddecisions made on the basis of presence (or absence) of a single measure should be avoided. Couldthese methods be adapted to suit field conditions? This question will remain open until more robustmeasures can be tested at sea, however, if reliable measures for time to death cannot be used in thefield, then it would appear that we cannot fully assess the true welfare implications of killing whalesby harpoon.The ‘poor ‘control’ of the commercial killing of the world’s largest mammals must be placed in thecontext of practical global efforts which are now being made by governments and others to introducepractical solutions to the commercial slaughter of other species and, in so doing, to reduce thepotential for poor welfare at slaughter. Those conducting the killing should be required todemonstrate that reliable methodologies are being used to calculate TTD. Only by doing so can theglobal community be confident that cetacea are not subjected to unreasonable or unnecessarysuffering during their slaughter. Without robust terminology, biologically valid measures, and reliably