Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability 1

(CITES), the 1979 Global Treaty on Migratory Species,the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, theU.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 (p. 241), the U.S.Whale Conservation and Protection Act of 1976, andthe 1995 International Convention on BiologicalDiversity.Public aquariums that exhibit unusual and attractivefish and some marine animals such as seals anddolphins have played an important role in educatingthe public about the need to protect such species.Case Study: Should Commercial WhalingBe Resumed? An Ongoing ControversyAfter many of the world’s whale species wereoverharvested, commercial whaling wasbanned in 1970, but there are efforts to overturnthis ban.Cetaceans are an order of mostly marine mammalsranging in size from the 0.9-meter (3-foot) porpoise tothe giant 15- to 30-meter (50- to 100-foot) blue whale.They are divided into two major groups: toothed whalesand baleen whales (Figure 13-8, p. 260).Toothed whales, such as the porpoise, sperm whale,and killer whale (orca), bite and chew their food andfeed mostly on squid, octopus, and other marine animals.Baleen whales, such as the blue, gray, humpback,and finback, are filter feeders. Instead of teeth theyhave several hundred horny plates made of baleen, orwhalebone, that hang down from the upper jaw. Theseplates filter plankton from the seawater, especially tinyshrimplike krill (Figure 4-19, p. 69). Baleen whales arethe more abundant of the two cetacean groups.Whales are fairly easy to kill because of their largesize and their need to come to the surface to breathe.Mass slaughter has become efficient with the use ofradar and airplanes to locate them, fast ships, harpoonguns, and inflation lances that pump dead whales fullof air and make them float.Whale harvesting, mostly in international waters,has followed the classic pattern of a tragedy of thecommons, with whalers killing an estimated 1.5 millionwhales between 1925 and 1975. This overharvestingreduced the populations of 8 of the 11 majorspecies to the point at which it no longer paid to huntand kill them (commercial extinction). It also drove somecommercially prized species such as the giant bluewhale to the brink of biological extinction (see CaseStudy, p. 260).In 1946, the International Convention for theRegulation of Whaling established the InternationalWhaling Commission (IWC), which now has 49 nationmembers. Its mission was to regulate the whaling industryby setting annual quotas to prevent overharvestingand commercial extinction.This did not work well for two reasons. First, IWCquotas often were based on inadequate data or ignoredby whaling countries. Second, without powers ofenforcement the IWC was not able to stop the declineof most commercially hunted whale species.In 1970, the United States stopped all commercialwhaling and banned all imports of whale products.Under pressure from environmentalists, the U.S. government,and governments of many nonwhalingcountries in the IWC, the IWC has imposed a moratoriumon commercial whaling since 1986. It worked.The estimated number of whales killed commerciallyworldwide dropped from 42,480 in 1970 to about 1,200in 2004.Despite the ban, IWC members Japan and Norwayhave continued to hunt certain whale species, andIceland resumed hunting whales in 2002—stating thata certain number of whales needed to be harvested forscientific purposes. Japan, Norway, Iceland, Russia,and a growing number of small tropical island countries—whichJapan brought into the IWC to support itsposition—continue working to overthrow the IWCban on commercial whaling and reverse the internationalban on buying and selling whale products.They argue that commercial whaling should be allowedbecause it has long been a traditional part of theeconomies and cultures of countries such as Japan,Iceland, and Norway. They also contend that the ban isbased on emotion, not updated scientific estimates ofwhale populations.The moratorium on commercial whaling has ledto a sharp rebound in the estimated populations ofsperm, pilot, and minke whales. Proponents of resumingwhaling see no scientific reason for not resumingcontrolled and sustainable hunting of these speciesand other whale species with populations of at least1 million.Conservationists disagree. Some argue that whalesare peaceful, intelligent, sensitive, and highly socialmammals that pose no threat to humans and should beprotected for ethical reasons. Others question IWC estimatesof the allegedly recovered whale species, notingthe inaccuracy of past IWC estimates of whale populations.Also, many conservationists fear that openingthe door to any commercial whaling may eventuallylead to widespread harvests of most whale species byweakening current international disapproval and legalsanctions against commercial whaling.Proponents of resuming whaling say that peoplein other countries have no right to tell Japanese,Norwegians, and other whaling culture countries thatbecause we like whales they must not eat them. Thiswould be like people in India who consider cows sacredtelling Americans and Europeans that theyshould not be allowed to eat beef.xHOW WOULD YOU VOTE? Should commercial whalingbe resumed? Cast your vote online at http://biology.brookscole.com/miller14.http://biology.brookscole.com/miller14259