In spite of nearly four decades of protection Antarctic blue whales show little sign of recovery, according to the latest science from the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The worrying new findings were released on the first day of the annual International Whaling Commission conference in Shimonoseki, Japan, where the worldwide ban on commercial whaling is hanging in the balance.
According to the IWC Scientific Committee report, despite intensive surveys of the Antarctic only 75 blue whales have been sighted in the past 20 years. As the largest of the great whales, blue whales were the most profitable species for Antarctic whalers to catch and consequently their population of about 250,000 was reduced to around 1,000 within 60 years.
The report comes as fears grow that Japan's vote buying offensive - where overseas aid is offered to countries in exchange for them joining the IWC and voting in line with Japan - may succeed in ending the global moratorium on whaling. (1)
Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner Richard Page at the IWC said,
"Blue whales have been protected for nearly four decades but they still haven't recovered from being the targets of commercial whalers. Japan wants a return to high seas whaling with factory ships, and if the global community doesn't stop them we'll see again the sort of whaling that devastated whale populations like the blue all over the globe."
The report also estimates Southern Hemisphere minke populations in all Antarctic areas surveyed are less than half previously estimated. Most of the Antarctic has now been surveyed for the third time, although the whole survey will not be completed until 2004. On average, the minke population in all the areas surveyed was 46% of the estimate from the previous survey.
IWC scientists have not agreed on an explanation for this drastic reduction but one possibility is climate change, which is known to be having an increasing impact on the Antarctic ecosystem.
Although this decline was found in the areas in which the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) conducts its "scientific research" whaling it was never reported by the "scientific" whalers. In fact after their Southern Ocean expedition this year they reported seeing large numbers of minkes.
The report also contains new surveys submitted to the IWC by Norway showing there are not as many North Atlantic minkes as previously thought and an increased level of uncertainty about the population estimate. This should decrease the number of whales Norway takes in the future. But when it was revealed their catch was predominantly female in 2000, Norway simply changed the way it calculated its catch limits (by lowering the tuning level for the Revised Management Procedure agreed to by the IWC) in order to keep catching the same number of whales.
"Given this history, Norway will just bend the rules again to catch as many whales as it can," said Page. "The number of whales caught by Norway is driven by the whaling industry, not by sound science and the need to protect whales."
The report also reveals:
After the release of the Kondo/Kasuya report, which documented systematic and organised falsification of catch statistics by Japanese coastal whalers, the IWC Scientific Committee has set up a working group to investigate the nature and quality of past data. Japan has refused to provide scientists for this group and says the previous official catch statistics are correct.
Total reported bycatch (whales caught in fishing nets) for 2001 in Japan was three times the average figure for the previous five years. This follows the introduction of new regulations in Japan which allows fishermen to sell whales caught in fishing nets.
"All the scientific evidence from the IWC points to the need to adopt a truly precautionary approach and to stop Japanese "scientific" whaling and Norwegian commercial whaling," Page said.
Notes for editors:
1. In 1999 the Japanese vote buying offensive was stepped up with Guinea joining the IWC in 2000 and Morocco and Panama joining in 2001. All three consistently voted in line with Japan. In the last week Benin, Gabon, Palau and Mongolia have joined and are expected to vote in favour of a resumption of commercial whaling. These votes added to those of the pro-whaling countries may provide the Government of Japan with a simple majority, although this will not be clear until votes are actually taken within the meeting. A three-quarters majority is necessary to overturn the moratorium but a simple majority is enough for the Government of Japan to make changes in the IWC's rules that will accelerate the downwards slide, towards a resumption of commercial whaling.
Further information:
Contact:
Greenpeace UK press office on 020 7865 8255
