This was the week that many conservationists were dreading because there was a compromise on the table at the International Whaling Commissions annual Meeting in Morroco. The deal was supposed to spare lives while giving up the moratorium on commercial whaling by allowing Japan, Norway and Iceland to whale under very strict guidelines, to slaughter whales within smaller quotas than the ones they follow today.
For many like me, this compromise was still too many whales killed. Many scientists agreed that the quotas agreed to were unsustainable under any circumstance and no matter how closely they were monitored.
AGADIR, Morocco (AFP) – More than 200 scientists and experts Tuesday called on the International Whaling Commission to maintain its ban on commercial whaling to ensure the future of species depleted by industrial hunting.
"The IWC must not undermine the conservation achievements of the last few decades by again endorsing commercial whaling," they said in a petition.
"There is no evidence that any of the few populations and species known to be increasing have reached, or are anywhere near, the levels that might justify non-zero catch limits."
And even though the deal eventually fell through during two days of closed door meetings (which in of itself was unacceptable, as a conference these negotiations should have been open to the public), this doesn't mean the IWC has met its obligation as a governing body. It has failed to do so since that moratorium was set in the 1986.
The United States and President Obama stood by it's promise to hold up the moratorium, which I'm very grateful for, many NGO's in the US pushed for people to call and write the White House to hold our Government accountable and tell them to please stop this heinous compromise.
But the Japanese have vowed to keep on whaling under the loop hole in the moratorium, and call it scientific research even though that has been thoroughly debunked.
Mr Moronuki said Japan's research programs would continue, raising pressure on the Australian government to seek an injunction to stop the whaling before the hearing of the International Court of Justice case, which could take several years.
Fin Whale
The Australian Government is attempting to block their continued defiance of the IWC's whaling ban and New Zealand is considering joining them in the lawsuit.
What needs to happen is the loophole should have been closed at this meeting, rather than attempting to appease the Japanese who were clear that they have no intention of discontinuing whaling even after the new deal was struck and the quota numbers were to be ramped down over a ten year period of whaling for nations insistent on continuing the practice.
Tokyo floated possible cuts from its self-awarded Antarctic scientific quota of 935 minke whales and 10 fins.
Mr Garrett said Australia was holding to its demand for a phase down to zero "in a reasonable period".
"If there isn't going to be an agreement on the discussions so far … we should close the door on it," Mr Garrett said of the deal.
Instead he said the government wanted to turn attention to the IWC itself, which was under a cloud, with further allegations of Japanese vote-buying, and a need to introduce whale conservation programs
"We should continue to work on those things where we can find agreement and where we can deliver good practices for the commission to take forward," Mr Garrett said.
Japanese Fisheries Vice Minister Yasue Funayama warned the meeting that insisting on a cut to zero by Japan was unscientific and would mean the impasse would continue.
This is the issue, there is no compromise if a handful of Nations insist that killing whales is scientific in basis and many others feel it is totally unnecessary. It is a ruse for so much more and it is about a totally different issue, about selling whale meat and about continue a practice that is not sustainable.
I want to see the US follow the Australians and call that the IWC be fixed and that we stop with this insanity of allow such loopholes that make this body completely useless. Slaughtering whales of any number cannot be allowed, not with the many other threats that they face in the oceans and not with what we are learning about their societies, their intelligence and with the totally inhumane means with which the whaling practice is done.
More needs to be done rather than throwing up our arms and saying, we cannot agree and leave it alone for another year. There is too much at stake for many whale species, such as the North Pacific Gray and Humpback whales that call the Pacific ocean their home and migrate up down the coast of North America.
I've written many times that this is not the only threat to whales and dolphins, that the hunting, the slaughters are not their only enemy, but they face so many other challenges, mostly man made!
Whales face new threats deadlier than whaling.
But climate change now means it is harder for whales to find food, ship collisions are growing, pollution is disrupting their reproduction, and fishing nets can kill or wound them, according to delegates at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting in the Moroccan Atlantic city of Agadir.
"If you put all these threats together, whaling pales in comparison," U.S. IWC Commissioner Monica Medina told Reuters. "These issues are so much more problematic and we really need to change the focus of the Commission onto these things."
...
"I think that ... the IWC could at least be more interested in the problem of entanglement and by-catch and be more serious in discussing it," said Lars Walloe, scientific adviser to the government of Norway, one of three remaining whaling nations.
One of the most dangers things for whales and dolphins? Nets. And yes, overfishing is a huge threat to our oceans but does that mean we should allow whaling to continue, unchecked? And should we be happy that the IWC is an international body that cannot even enforce it's own moratorium?
But we cannot allow this to be a distraction to the issue, the IWC is the International Whaling Commission, set to deal with whales and whaling issues alone. There are many other organizations that worry about by catch, sonar interference, etc. and it's easy to let whaling nations try to point fingers at everything that is a threat whales and dolphin's not related to whaling.
But there is nothing that says they have to contribute to the loss of whales and make their survival anymore difficult by killing them for science or food. It is a lousy argument and we must stop it and we need to do something.
So many are calling the failed deal a win for whales and yet the whaling nations will continue to kill whales unhindered by law (sure the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society can try to do something, and watch in horror as whales are slaughtered in front of them because they attempt to not harm people in the process).
The question remains and is an important one, are we talking about resources vs. beings.
“It’s kind of a dichotomy between those who see whales as resources and those who see whales as beings,” said Hal Whitehead, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who studies sperm whales in the wild.
Proponents of whaling have argued for years that evidence of cetacean intelligence is weak and overstated. The Japanese Whaling Association, a pro-whaling lobbying group, states at its Web site that “those who assert that the whale has a higher intelligence base their assertion on the large size of a whale’s brain. It is simply natural for a whale, which has a large head, to have a larger brain than those of other animals, but that does not necessarily mean that it has higher intelligence.”
Yet arguments about brain size and cetacean intelligence have fallen to the wayside in recent years, with experiments in captivity showing that dolphins can grasp basic language and math skills, understand concepts of imitation and improvisation, and succeed in self-awareness tests previously passed only by humans and primates.
Whale and dolphin research in the wild ocean has also had breakthroughs. Dolphins have been shown to divide themselves into societies, forming complex alliances to compete and fight against other dolphin groups. And preliminary research shows whales distinguishing themselves geographically through variations in their famous vocalizations – the human equivalent of accents and dialects.
The article goes on to talk about the scientific research done by the Japanese such as, what is the best method to kill whales by, which grenade works most effectively in their harpoons? Is this necessary? I mean, would this be considered humane and necessary scientific research for farming practices in the the US?
And even for those who may argue that they are merely a resource as the Japanese do, they do not reproduce as chickens and deer do, they are slow to gestate, to ween from the Mothers and they have all these other environmental threats facing them.
And I want to see other issues threatening whales and our oceans addressed, such as heavy metal poisoning that is not just a threat to whales, but to human health as well.
2001 file photo by Chris Bangs, AP
I'm tired of the excuses. I want to see this Country and others follow in the foot steps of Australia, sue whaling nations for breaking the law and stop them from killing whales.