News Reports - 2000
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Date: Mon, 10 Jan, 2000
Japanese Whalers and Greenpeace Collide at Sea
HOBART, Tasmania, Australia, (Lycos ENS) - Greenpeace is recording its most extensive success in a decade of harassing Japan's whaling fleet, with nearly three weeks' engagement of the fleet off eastern Antarctica.
Activists aboard the ship Arctic Sunrise tracked down the secretive fleet for a third time this week, and claimed to have successfully disrupted whaling on eight separate occasions. In their latest action they hoisted an eight metre high hose spray using a pump aboard an inflatable to block a harpoonist's line of sight.
Arctic Sunrise first found Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha's fleet on December 20, 1999 north of Casey Station in an unheralded revival of Greenpeace's campaigns of direct action to halt the world's last factory whaling fleet.
The crew of the Greenpeace inflatable place a stream of water directly in front of the Toshi-maru's harpoon to block the killing of whales. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace) In the face of a sophisticated campaign to send images of the whaling around the world using a helicopter and satellite communications, the Japanese fleet twice gave the single Greenpeace ship the slip. But with greater success than earlier campaigns in the 1990s, Greenpeace was able to track down the fleet again.
Twice activists have leapt into the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean in attempts to stop the transfer of harpooned whales. At other times they have driven inflatables below the stern of the factory ship Nisshin Maru to hamper operations as fire hoses rained down the stern ramp.
But as the ships manoeuvred, the Arctic Sunrise and the much larger factory ship were also involved in a collision at sea, in which both ships were dented.
Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha said its "whale research laboratory vessel" was hit by Arctic Sunrise, damaging the stern shell but causing no casualties.
Greenpeace said the collision happened when Nisshin Maru rammed Arctic Sunrise in an illegal overtaking manoeuvre, and it has protested to the maritime safety authority at Arctic Sunrise's country of registration, Holland.
Greenpeace activists attempt to prevent the transfer of a minke whale onto the deck of the Japanese factory ship Nisshin-maru. The factory ship carries a crew of 112 and butchers the whales caught by the catcher ships in five vessel fleet. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace) The campaign comes six months ahead of what is expected to be a fiery annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) - this time in Adelaide, Australia.
Japan's hunt for 440 minke whales in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary under a self-awarded scientific permit is condemned by the majority of IWC nations. Last year the fleet's departure for Antarctica was met by protests from the British, United States, Australian and New Zealand governments.
But Japan argues it is taking only a small fraction of the world's last remaining big population of baleen, or filter feeding whales, and the kill is sustainable. The IWC counts more than 700,000 minke whales worldwide, most of them in the Antarctic.
In its attempt to exploit the resource, Japan has given notice that it will ask for permission to trade in minke meat at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species when it meets in Nairobi in April.
Republished with permission from http://www.antarctican.com/
Date: Mon, 10 Jan, 2000
Y2K Bug Not Only Species In Grave Danger
Letters to the Editor - Jim Robertson (Twisp)
EXTINCTION - In a fit of arrogant optimism bolstered by surviving the Y2K non-crisis, many are asking, "Where will we be in Y3K?" Perhaps a more pressing question is, "Which species would be able to survive another 1,000 years of mankind's reign of terror?"
Forget computer malfunctions, power outages or other inconveniences. The new millennium finds us in the midst of a mass extinction unrivaled since a giant asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis can't bail us out of this impending Armageddon by simply blasting a menacing death-rock to smithereens.
Our species, one in 1,413,000, is out to prove that it doesn't take an asteroid strike to unravel life's intricate diversity. In doing so, humans are on a collision course with destiny. We are eradicating 30,000 species per year -- 120,000 times the natural extinction rate of one every four years.
A recent annual survey by the Chinese government found so few of their nationally celebrated, freshwater white dolphins remaining in the Yangtze River that on Dec. 29 they were written off as living relics of an extinct species. China and India now boast more than 1 billion each of a human population that is 6 billion strong and growing. Comparing those figures with the billion inhabitants on the entire planet in 1600, any game manager would clearly see a species out of balance.
As Richard Leakey, the renowned paleoanthropologist warns, "Dominant as no other species has been in the history of life on Earth, Homo sapiens is in the throes of causing a major biological crisis, a mass extinction. . . . And we may also be among the living dead."
Where will we be in another millennium? Will a future Bruce Willis save us from ourselves? Or will we have gone the way of the dinosaurs and the Yangtze white dolphin?
Date: Thur, 13 Jan, 2000
Greenpeace: Europe to Decide Fate of Whales
WASHINGTON, /U.S. Newswire/ -- Greenpeace is urging Europe to preserve the ban on the international trade in whale products at a meeting in Brussels Friday, Jan. 14.
Greenpeace U.S.A. is calling on U.S. Government officials to encourage European nations to vote in favor of protecting whales from extinction.
A vote will be held tomorrow to determine how European representatives (1) vote at the international meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), to be held in Nairobi, April 2000. Tomorrow's preliminary vote will decide whether or not to the European nations vote with Norway and Japan, in favor of lifting the current ban on the trade in whale.
The U.S. must make its voice heard to ensure that the European Union (19 countries, representing upwards of 20 percent of the CITES vote) upholds the current ban on the trade in whale products" said Greenpeace Campaigner, Andrew Davies (USA), board the MV Arctic Sunrise in the Southern Ocean.
"If Europe does not voice its united opposition to lifting the trade ban, the global whaling industry will be re-established," said Greenpeace campaigner, John Frizell.
"During the last century, people devastated whale populations all over the world. This industry should be consigned to the dustbin of history, not revived in the new millennium," he added.
For the past month, the Greenpeace vessel, M V Arctic Sunrise, has been tracking the world's last whaling fleet which is owned by a Japanese company. The fleet has been hunting illegally in the protected Southern Ocean whale sanctuary in the Antarctic and aims to catch 440 Minke whales this season. Greenpeace activists have been taking non-violent direct action to protect whales by putting themselves in front of the harpoons and their inflatable boats in front of the Japanese catcher ships. (FOOTAGE AND STILLS AVAILABLE)
Japan is violating international law by whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in an attempt to re-open large scale, commercial whaling world-wide. Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 after a vote by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The ban was agreed because all other attempts to control whaling had failed. (2) Japan claims that its whaling is 'scientific', even though the IWC's scientists have said that they do not need the data it provides. The meat from whales killed in the 'scientific' hunt is sold on the open market in Japan. (3)
Notes to Editors:
- (1) All European countries are represented at CITES, with the exception of Ireland.
- (2) The IWC discovered last year that the Japanese coastal whaling industry had falsified catch records until the IWC's ban on whaling came in to effect. Russian factory ships also took more than 100,000 whales over their quotas.
- (3) Japan is also actively lobbying over a dozen developing countries to become members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and vote with Japan to resume commercial whaling world-wide in exchange for foreign aid from the Government of Japan.
For further information, contact:
MV Arctic Sunrise: John Bowler and Andrew Davies (USA) on board MV Arctic Sunrise, 011-873-624-453-210 (satellite rates)
Washington, D.C.: Gerry Leape, Greenpeace Oceans Campaign, 202-319-2401, 202-258-5234 (mobile) or Craig Culp, Greenpeace, 202-251-6296.
Europe: International Press Desk, Amsterdam: Matilda Bradshaw, 31 20 523 9545 or mobile, 31 (06) 535 04701
Australia: Dima Litvinov, 61 408 869 788, or Kate Johnston, 61 411 874 819
FOOTAGE AND STILLS AVAILABLE
Footage and stills of recent Greenpeace non-violent direct actions in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary are available from the Greenpeace International press office.
LATEST ACTION UPDATES ARE ON THE WEB
HYPERLINK: http://www.greenpeace.org/~oceans/whales/index.html
Copyright 2000, U.S. Newswire
Date: Thu, 13 Jan, 2000
Tainted fish food is blamed in death of Shedd's beluga
By William Mullen - Chicago Tribune Staff Writer
The death of a beluga whale mother at the Shedd Aquarium last month apparently was caused by bacteria-contaminated fish fed to her by keepers and sold by wholesalers who supply the nation's restaurants and supermarkets, according to test results released Wednesday.
The 14-year-old whale, Immiayuk, was killed by an invisible bacteria found on the skin of fish that can cause a lethal blood-borne infection in whales and dolphins, Shedd officials said.
Five years ago, the same disease, erysipelas, killed Quitz, a young Pacific whitesided dolphin at the Shedd. The cause of Immiayuk's death on Dec. 26 was confirmed through detailed, microscopic analysis done on tissue taken from her carcass.
The Shedd buys fish for its marine mammals from about 50 brokers on both coasts. Government inspected, it is the highest grade of fish available, rated as "human consumption quality."
"The vendors I deal with all sell their fish to restaurants all over the country," said Ken Ramirez, the Shedd's chief marine mammal trainer.
"We give our animals only the very highest-quality food."
Cooking the fish kills the bacteria. Whales and dolphins, of course, eat the fish raw, including the scales and outer mucous membrane, where the bacteria resides.
Humans eating raw fish, such as sushi, presumably don't eat the outer mucous membrane and scales and so are unaffected by the bacteria, except for a slight chance of minor skin irritations.
Erysipelas is one of the known causes of death for whales and dolphins in the wild and has been a cause of death for whales and dolphins in many zoo and aquarium collections in the past as well, said Jeff Boehm, Shedd vice president and chief of veterinary services.
"The course of this disease is so swift, and the symptoms typically are not visible until the animal is near death, making it difficult to detect in time to treat effectively," Boehm said.
The bacteria lives in the exterior mucous coating of healthy wild fish. All wild and captive dolphins are thought to be exposed to the bacteria from time to time, but it usually passes harmlessly through their digestive systems.
Why it occasionally kills, as it did in the case of Quitz and Immiayuk, who left behind a nursing five-month-old female calf, is an answer that has eluded Shedd officials and researchers all over the country.
The bacteria appears in and can be harmful to many kinds of land animals too. Veterinary medicine long has provided farmers with inoculations to protect turkeys and pigs from the disease. A version of the vaccine used on swine was tried several years ago on captive dolphins, but Ramirez said side effects from the drug were so severe that its use was discontinued.
It is impossible to obtain fish without bacteria, Boehm said. Since Quitz died from erysipelas in 1995, Shedd keepers periodically take samples from the frozen fish it stocks to grow cultures in search of the bacteria.
"We have never been able to isolate this bacteria," Boehm said. "It just seems to appear in wild fish from time to time."
Most often the fish supplied by wholesalers is frozen, but freezing does not kill the bacteria. It is thawed but raw when fed to the whales and dolphins. Boehm said researchers are working to discover how often the fish might be carrying the erysipelas bacteria, and why the bacteria can be so deadly to one animal while others around it appear unaffected.
In any infectious disease, in humans or animals, Boehm said, a combination of factors usually is present before it can cause harm. Those include exposure to the bacteria, the disease getting access to vital organs and its being able to get past the host's immune defense systems.
The most logical way it could breach the immune system would be when the animal is weakened by injury, other illnesses or age, he said. That did not seem to be the case with Immiayuk, who checked out as perfectly healthy in an exam a few weeks before her death.
"Her immune system was robust," Boehm said.
"She even had evidence of antibodies for erysipelas a few years ago. So now we have to wonder if this is a different strain of the bacteria from the one we have seen here before. If so, we want to know how often and how much of the bacteria shows up."
Because it is so difficult to detect, he said nobody knows how the bacteria presents itself:
"Do you find it in great amounts on a single, isolated fish out of the thousands that come in a shipment? Is it found in moderate amounts on a few fish in the batch? Is it present in small amounts on all the fish of a given batch? We don't know."
The Shedd feeds its marine mammal collection 650 pounds of fish a day. Every day, Ramirez said, about 20 people examine each fish individually, looking for signs of disease and deterioration. Any fish with missing scales, a missing eye or any other telltale sign of trouble is thrown away.
Shedd officials have discussed the possibility of using a process of irradiating the fish to kill the bacteria, but that process would sterilize the food so completely, it might be even more dangerous than the erysipelas bacteria, Boehm said.
"There are all sorts of bacteria that are part of normal physiological system for which the animal has a natural immunity," he said. "If you killed (all the bacteria), then any bacteria that later slipped back into their system could be a killer. We don't want animals that are naive of all potential pathogens."
Boehm said researchers at the Shedd and elsewhere are trying to find out more about how the erysipelas bacteria spreads in nature and how it conquers the immune systems of some animals and not others. From that knowledge, they hope to develop a vaccine that would protect captive and wild whales, porpoises and dolphins.
Since Immiayuk's death, keepers have been training her calf Kayavak to eat whole fish. Still nursing when her mother died, she has been weaned from her milk diet and gained 10 pounds on her fish diet.
"It's an around-the-clock process to feed her," Ramirez said. "If she were nursing, she'd be feeding from her mom every hour or so, so we have to accommodate her digestion by feeding her throughout the day and night, about once every three hours."
For the time being, the calf remains in the Shedd's off-viewing medical pool. For a few days after Immiayuk's death, an older adolescent female beluga, Naya, swam with her in the pool, but Ramirez said Naya showed signs of being bored with constant baby-sitting.
Kayavak's current companions are keepers who remain with her 24 hours a day.
© Chicago Tribune 2000
Date: Mon, 17 Jan, 2000
Up to 100 Dolphins Beached in Florida Keys
By Michael Connor of Reuters
Miami, Florida [Reuters] - An estimated 75 to 100 bottlenose dolphins have beached themselves along jagged shores in the Florida Keys and as many as 25 have died, marine police said on Monday.
Some dolphins were injured by rocks and sharp coral as they came ashore overnight along Long Key or thrashed in shallow waters, wildlife officials said.
Other strandings involving fewer dolphins had been reported at two other spots in the Keys, a string of narrow islands south of Miami, according to spokesman Stephen Acton of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
No cause for the beachings, similar to one involving more than 100 dolphins in 1999, had been determined. A cause was not likely to be uncovered until detailed physical examinations now underway on some dead animals had been completed, Acton said.
Bottlenosed dolphins normally live 65km or more offshore but have been known to head for the coast when one or more in a group falls ill.
"This is an unusually large number of animals to be involved in something like this," Acton said.
"It could be from a bacterial or viral infection or some bad water."
Dozens of aquatic experts in black wetsuits, neighbourhood volunteers, divers, and police rescue workers were working at Long Key to treat the sick animals and persuade the others to return to safe waters.
Many dolphins had returned to open waters, he said. But some 25 to 30 of the sleek, light-coloured dolphins remained in a deep pool off the small town of Layton on Long Key. Some were sick but most were unharmed and were even taking food from the rescuers, he said.
"A lot of the healthy animals won't leave because of the sick ones. They keep responding to the sounds of the sick ones squealing, chirping and popping," he said.
Acton said the rescuers were planning to move the sick animals to a tank at a nearby aquatic research centre outside the hearing of the other dolphins in a bid to encourage the healthy ones to swim out to safer waters.
Date: Wed, 19 Jan, 2000
Japan Assaults California Gray Whales
by David Phillips and Mark J. Palmer
San Francisco, Earth Island Institute today denounced the government of Japan's proposal to reopen commercial whaling and trade in meat of the California gray whale at the same time that the giant Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation is proposing to build a massive industrial salt plant at San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, the last pristine gray whale breeding lagoon.
"Japan is now waging a massive, two-pronged assault on the gray whales," declared David Phillips, Director of Earth Island Institute's International Marine Mammal Project.
"Unless they are stopped, the gray whales will be harpooned at sea and have their critical breeding lagoon destroyed."
"The Mitsubishi Corporation claims to be the friends of gray whales and concerned about their welfare," Phillips added.
"All the time, they and their Mexican counterparts, ESSA, have been planning to build a new industrial salt plant complex on the shores of San Ignacio Lagoon, a protected gray whale breeding ground."
The Mitsubishi Corp. is working with the Mexican corporation Exportadora de Sal, S.A. de C.V. (ESSA), owned by the Mexican government, to develop 116 square miles of land for a massive industrial salt plant facility in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja, Mexico. San Ignacio Lagoon is the last undeveloped gray whale birthing lagoon in the world and is a key part of the Vizcaino Reserve, a World Heritage site designated by UNESCO that protects desert and marine ecosystems across the entire Baja Peninsula.
"The Vizcaino Reserve is one of the most important wildlife refuges in the world and the largest refuge in Latin America," explains Phillips.
"A salt plant operation is no more appropriate for this reserve than are dams in the Grand Canyon National Park or an oil refinery in Yosemite National Park."
The proposed salt plant at San Ignacio Lagoon threatens the gray whale population with construction and operation noise, air and water pollution, and increased access by humans to the lagoon and surrounding desert. Gray whales use the lagoon annually to give birth to their young. (Right now is the peak of the gray whales' annual southern migration past California to the birthing lagoons in Baja.) The production of salt will dump large quantities of toxic bitterns as a byproduct. Hundreds of sea turtles, fish, and other species have been poisoned by toxic salt brine spills at the existing Mitsubishi/ESSA salt plant in Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, about one hundreds miles north of the pristine San Ignacio Lagoon.
The salt plant would further disrupt the local habitats of native wildlife and plants. The tourist trade and local fishing, which are the mainstays of the local economy, would also be heavily impacted.
While the Mitsubishi Corporation is publicly claiming to be concerned for the welfare of gray whales, the Japanese government is setting the stage for renewing the bloody slaughter of gray whales on the high seas. Japan has now sent a formal proposal to the Convention on International Traded in Endangered Species (CITES), the international treaty body that prohibits trade in endangered species, to delist the gray whale from the protected list and once again allow international trade in gray whale meat. This is a preliminary step in the effort by Japan to renew harpooning of gray whales and encourage other countries to resume whaling so the meat can be sold to Japan. CITES will be meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, and will consider the Japanese proposal, on April 10-20, 2000. Gray whales were removed from the U.S. endangered species list in 1994 by former President George Bush.
Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation historically was deeply involved in the decimation of various whale species during commercial whaling operations. They were major stockholders in the Taiyo Company (now called Maruha), which slaughtered hundreds of thousands of whales until international outcry led to the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985. The Taiyo Co. even approached the Mexican government in the 1970s requesting permission to kill gray whales off Baja. The government of Japan later bought out Taiyo's and other commercial whaling operations and has consistently sought an end to the whaling moratorium ever since.
"The Mitsubishi Corporation is closely linked with the government of Japan. Destroying the breeding lagoons, and the government proposal to re-commence gray whale hunting, coming from both the former Mitsubishi whaling company and the Japanese government, is not a coincidence," stated Phillips.
"Clearly, gray whales are under assault by the corporate and government interests of Japan. Mexico and other nations of the world must stand up to this assault and maintain the protections for gray whales at CITES and in El Vizcaino Reserve. This magnificent whale, which millions of people observe annually on whalewatching trips, is now being put at risk by greedy Japanese interests."
Date: Wed, 26 Jan, 2000
Activists intensify whaling protest
Yomiuri Shimbun
The Greenpeace environmentalist organization used radical measures to escalate its protests against Japan's scientific research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean, Japanese whaling sources said Tuesday.
The 13th research whaling fleet, which consists of the 7,575-ton mother ship Nisshin Maru and four other boats, left Shimonoseki Port in Yamaguchi Prefecture on Nov. 9. The research whaling, which is sponsored by the government-affiliated Institute of Cetacean Research, began in the Antarctic Ocean in early December and is scheduled to continue until April.
According to the Japan Whaling Association and others, Greenpeace's 949-ton Arctic Sunrise first appeared in the area the fleet was operating in on Dec. 20.
Greenpeace members then used a number of methods to obstruct the fleet's operations.
Using rafts, Greenpeace members tried to board a catcher boat, taking advantage of the boat's low deck, which is one meter above the sea surface. Others jumped from a helicopter into the water in front of the fleet, the association said. A wireless transmitter has been found attached to the Nisshin Maru's hull, the association added.
Three Greenpeace members tried to board Nisshin Maru by using a line from a raft that was tied to the wire rope being used to drag a minke whale onto the deck. However, the attempt was unsuccessful when the Nisshin Maru crew cut the line, the association said.
According to the association, Greenpeace members in the past have illegally boarded a research whaling mother ship moored at a port, but this was the first time members tried to board a mother ship at sea.
Water was also sprayed from a raft onto the catcher boats for the first time, the association said.
The research whaling fleet retaliated by spraying water onto the Greenpeace raft.
Meanwhile, the Arctic Sunrise collided with the rear starboard side of the Nisshin Maru on the afternoon of Dec. 21. Each side claimed the other had "intentionally" caused the collision.
Greenpeace members had not been observed making a protest over whaling in the three years following the eighth research whaling expedition in 1994-95.
During the 12th research whaling expedition in 1998-99, Greenpeace members attached chains to the Nisshin Maru's propeller while the ship was moored at Noumea in New Caledonia, where it made a call after a fire had broken out on board.
However, this was the first time Greenpeace showed up in the Antarctic Ocean, the association said.
The annual International Whaling Commission convention will be held from June to July in Australia, an antiwhaling nation. As the Summer Olympic Games will be held in Sydney this year, Japanese whaling sources assume that Greenpeace will view the annual convention and the Olympics as good opportunities to make an appeal to the world.
"I've heard that Greenpeace now has difficulty raising donations. It may be that focusing on antiwhaling activities will make it relatively easy to find sponsors," said Takehiro Takayama, adviser to Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd., the company that owns the ships. Takayama also serves as acting chairman of the whaling association.
According to Greenpeace Japan, commercial whaling is being carried out under the guise of research whaling.
"If you want to study the ecosystem of whales, you can do it without killing them. We are trying to stop environmental destruction at whaling sites. We are not taking any actions that directly damage property or risk human lives," a spokeswoman for the organization said.
Since 1987, Japan has been sending research whaling fleets to the Antarctic Ocean under a scientific research whaling program that allows Japan to catch up to 440 whales.
Copyright 2000 © The Yomiuri Shimbun
Date: Mon, 31 Jan, 2000
Japan Appeals to NZ for 'Calm' on Whaling Dispute
Tokyo, [Reuters] - Tokyo's foreign ministry called on New Zealand on Monday for "calm" over a long-running dispute about Japan's whaling programme.
In a letter to his New Zealand counterpart, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono also reiterated his country's stance on "scientific" whaling, explaining its legitimacy and the situation of whale resources, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"I hope that we can continue to express our country's beliefs in a calm way," Kono added.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark issued a statement last week siding with a recent Greenpeace anti-whaling campaign, sparking a reply from Japanese agriculture minister Tokuichiro Tamazawa saying he was "gravely concerned" that Clark was siding with a group "known to be forcing its tenets on others by means of violent actions".
Since 1987, when Japan stopped commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium, Japanese boats have continued to hunt a limited number of whales for "scientific" purposes, with the whale meat being sold commercially.
Greenpeace has launched a new global whale sanctuary petition calling on governments to push for an end to all whaling, and in recent weeks water-borne Greenpeace campaigners have tried to disrupt Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, which lies off Antarctica between Australia and Africa.
Date: Mon, 01 Jan, 2000
Breach Marine Protection (Uk) Gets Whales On U.N. Forum Agenda
'Peoples Resolution' Could Be The Turning Point
LONDON, -- After years of effort and negotiation, Breach Marine Protection (BMP) has finally got the great whales onto the United Nations Millennium Forum agenda. The breakthrough came after the UN decided to hold a Millennium Assembly in an effort to forge better links with its citizens.
A proposal prepared by BMP to replace the current 1946 International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) - with a Convention based on the Conservation of whales and other cetaceans - has been commended to the UN Secretary-general, Kofi Annan. BMP believes that the massive world-wide support for the now four year old 'People's Resolution on the Abolition of Inhumane Commercial Slaughter of Whales' was a deciding factor. For years, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has declined to debate the 'People's Resolution', little wonder as Secretary Ray Gambell has consistently refused to place the 'Resolution' on IWC meetings schedule.
"We are absolutely delighted that our Report has been recommended to the UN." said David Smith, BMP's Campaigns Director and joint co-ordinator (with Andy Scollick) of the 'People's Resolution' from its inception. "So much hard work from many quarters has gone in to formulating both this Report and maintaining the 'People's Resolution'. This is great news for millions of people around the globe."
BMP's submissions are summarised in the UN Link 2000 report 'A UN for the 21st Century' prepared by the UNGA-Link UK, and are placed alongside this Project's recommendations on Human Rights, the Elimination of Poverty, Peace, Security and Disarmament and Environmental Sustainability. The summary states:
"A fundamental environmental fact is that human beings share the planet with other living creatures and that life exists in a web of mutual dependency. We are outraged by "man's inhumanity to man", and some of us no less so by the inhumane slaughter of whales for commercial profit. Over ten million people from forty different countries signed the People's Resolution to abolish this slaughter of defenceless creatures in the natural world. Recommendation: The United Nations should heed the voices of those millions of people and promote an International Convention for the Conservation of Whales."
"If Mr. Annan accepts our proposals we have the concerned international community to thank; any victory for the whales will be their victory." said Smith. "To all the individuals and organisations who have signed-on to the 'People's Resolution', BMP extents its heartfelt appreciation. This could be one hell of a blow for democracy." he added.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) currently operates on the 1946 International Convention on the Regulation of Whales (ICRW). Note the word 'Re gulation'. This convention was formulated in the harsh days of post-second world war. Because the populations of all whale species had been so depleted by the greed of whalers - some to the point of extinction - regulation on the numbers slaughtered, the type of killing gear used etc. was vital.
But the intent of the ICRW was to regulate whale 'stocks', so that more whales can be killed later. That is why the current world-wide Moratorium on whaling is just that, a moratorium (temporary halt), not a permanent ban. Under the 'rules' of the ICRW, the IWC can lift the Moratorium whenever it pleases. That Convention is now 54 years old, its 'rules' are not for the our world. Can you imagine a 21st Century disarmament convention being based on 1946 weaponry? It is also scientifically ignorant, e.g. in places the Convention refers to whales as 'fish'! The ICRW's interpretation body, the IWC, is riven with politics and self interest, consequently its rulings have little to do with whales.
The Breach Marine Protection Report calls on the United Nations to replace the ICRW with an ICCC, an International Convention on the Conservation of Cetaceans.
Contact:
Breach Marine Protection
3, St John's Street
Goole East Yorkshire DN14 5QL
Tele./Fax: +44 (0)1405 769375 e-mail: BreachEnv@aol.com
'People's Resolution on the Abolition of Inhumane Commercial Slaughter of Whales': http://www.Breach.org
United Nations: http://www.un.org
Date: Tue, 01 Feb, 2000
Japan and NZ will Continue to Differ on Whaling
Wellington, NZ [NZPA] - New Zealand and Japan would continue to differ on the issue of whaling, New Zealand foreign minister Phil Goff said today, in response to another statement from the Japanese Government.
The row between the two countries on Japan's so-called scientific whaling programme reached a kind of stand-off today as Mr Goff issued a statement which appeared to accept that the two countries would continue to hold different points of view on the matter.
He was responding to the latest communication from Japan on the dispute, from Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, who rejected New Zealand's claim about a serious decline in whale numbers.
In the letter to Mr Goff, Kono also called for "calm dialogue" on the whaling question, and explained "the legitimacy of our country's whaling for research and the situation of whale resources".
Prime Minister Helen Clark brought the issue to a head last week when she publicly expressed support for Greenpeace's protest action against Japan's whaling operation in Antarctic waters.
Japan hit back at her stance with a protest letter criticising her for supporting Greenpeace, and Miss Clark in turn retorted by suggesting the minister concerned "stick to the issue and get the facts right".
Mr Goff reiterated New Zealand's position again today, and said New Zealand would continue to promote an end to the whale hunting within the International Whaling Commission.
"The New Zealand Government and public remain unconvinced that Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, undertaken in the name of scientific research, is necessary," he said in the statement.
"However, as the Japanese Minister has pointed out, the two countries operate within a framework of excellent friendship and co-operation -- notwithstanding our differences over this issue -- and we will keep it that way."
He said the killing of large number of minke whales in the sanctuary "is distressing to many people in New Zealand and the wider community".
"New Zealand has consistently argued against lethal means of scientific whaling. With modern techniques, all the information needed for management and conservation of whales can in our view, be obtained by non-lethal methods," he said.
Japan has said its minke whaling programme is legitimate research and fully in compliance with the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
Greenpeace says that despite repeated requests by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to cancel its whaling programme, Japan plans to kill 440 minke whales this season, up from 389 last year.
Its activists have been dogging Japanese whalers in Antarctica, triggering angry denunciations in Tokyo.
Date: Fri, 11 Feb, 2000
Save the Last Adriatic Dolphins
New GRD Conservation Project in Croatia
About 220 bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) live along the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, from Rijeka at the head of the Gulf of Quarnero to Dubrovnik down to Montenegro. They are the last dolphin population to have survived in the entire Adriatic. This figure is critical. A minor disturbance in the ecological balance or a disease, such as the Morbilli virus which killed about 5,000 dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea in the 90s, suffices to wipe out this population. Other threats, such as fishing nets, deliberate killing by fishermen for alleged food competition, or high-speed boats and jetskies put the survival of these marine mammals at stake.
Together with a group of scientists and students from the Veterinary Faculty of Zagreb University, GRD wants to save the last Adriatic dolphins from extinction and protect their habitat.
For about 15 years, Prof. Hrvoje Gomercic, Professor of anatomy, histology, and embryology at the Veterinary Faculty of Zagreb University, has been collecting information - mostly through necropsies - about dolphins. Not least thanks to his efforts, dolphins have been under legal protection since 1995. Nonetheless, their numbers are on the decline: in the early nineties their population was estimated to be about 300. With enforcement lacking, several dolphins still die each year in fishing nets or through dynamite used by fishermen.
Other species which once were abundant in this area have become mostly extinct. Only rarely can one spot common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), or Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus). Another marine mammal, the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus), has vanished in the Adriatic Sea in spite of a protection act in force since 1935. This shows that laws alone do not guarantee the survival of a species.
from: German Dolphin Conservation Society (Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine, München)
Date: Thu, 02 Mar, 2000
Mexico scraps salt works near whale sanctuary
Salt production plants could threaten one of the last breeding habitats of the gray whale
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -- Mexico Thursday canceled a Baja California salt works expansion project that had faced bitter opposition from environmentalists arguing it posed a threat to Latin America's biggest wildlife sanctuary.
The project would have created the world's largest salt works at Laguna San Ignacio, near the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, an important breeding area for gray whales.
The project was headed by salt-exporting company Exportadora de Sal (ESSA) in which Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. holds a 49 percent stake, with the Mexican government controlling the remainder.
"It's a definitive withdrawal (of the project)," said Trade Minister Herminio Blanco, who acts as president of ESSA's board. "Mitsubishi totally supports the Mexican government's decision."
President Ernesto Zedillo said the government had carefully weighed the merits and drawbacks of the project, which ESSA said would have created much-needed jobs in Baja California.
The deciding factor was the "national and world importance and the uniqueness of the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve," Zedillo told a news conference.
Laguna San Ignacio is an important breeding area for gray whales.
"In Mexico, for now, environmental laws have triumphed over economic criteria," Mexican poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis told Reuters.
Environmentalists said the proposed evaporation basins would have threatened endangered species, including gray whales, sea lions, black sea turtles and prong-horned antelopes.
The warm water San Ignacio Lagoon is one of only four in the world where gray whales go to mate and calve after migrating 6,200 miles from the Bering Straits down the Canadian and U.S. Pacific coast each year.
ESSA already operates a smaller salt works nearby, which ships the bulk of its output to Japan.
The new plant would have involved burrowing out 116 square miles -- twice the size of Washington, D.C. It would have sucked 6,000 gallons per second of water out of the lagoon, perhaps affecting local fish hatcheries, critics said.
CNN © 2000 Cable News Network
Date: Thu, 02 Mar, 2000
Salt Plant at Laguna San Ignacio Cancelled
After 5 Year Battle Mitsubishi Ends Baja Mexico Salt Plant Project
YARMOUTH PORT, Mass., /PRNewswire/ -- The following release was issued today by the International Fund for Animal Welfare:
In a joint statement, Ernest Zedillo, President of Mexico, and James Brumm, V.P. of North American Operations for the Mitsubishi Corporation, announced today at a press conference in Mexico City that their longstanding plans to build the world's largest salt plant at Laguna San Ignacio, in Baja California Sur, Mexico, are cancelled. Laguna San Ignacio is the last pristine breeding ground of the California Gray Whale and home to numerous other endangered plant and animal species.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and its nearly 2 million supporters worldwide feels proud and elated that we were able to protect this magical nature reserve forever.
"IFAW applauds Mitsubishi's turnaround from environmental outlaw to environmental champion," says Jared Blumenfeld, IFAW's Director of Habitat.
"I have taken the decision to instruct the Mexican government representatives on the Board of ESSA to propose the definitive cancellation of the project," said President Zedillo earlier today. Says Blumenfeld,
"This decision by President Zedillo highlights Mexico's longstanding commitment to the protection of whales and wildlife in Mexico.'' According to Herminio Blanco, Mexico's Minister of Trade and Industry and Chairman of the Board of ESSA,
"Mitsubishi totally supports the decision of the government of Mexico."
IFAW's Blumenfeld credited this victory as people power at work. More than a million people wrote to Mitsubishi to protest the salt plant. More than 40 California cities passed resolutions against the proposed project and fifteen mutual funds played a critical role in persuading Mitsubishi to cancel the plant. More than 30 leading scientists and a coalition of environmental organizations, including more than 50 in Mexico, have shown that a united effort can produce this sort of landmark result. Mitsubishi, is the world's largest corporation, with more than $230-billion in revenues annually. IFAW has now called an end to its "Mitsubishi: Don't Buy It" campaign.
"At the end of the day, the campaign was successful because it had an impact on Mitsubishi's bottom line and reputation," says Blumenfeld.
A more than 3500-page Environmental Impact Statement was released today, and, while Mitsubishi claimed the report would have paved the way for them to proceed, the company admitted global pressure led them to decide to cancel plans for the project. All the environmental groups involved are committed to ensuring the economic sustainability of the local people living in and around Laguna San Ignacio.
Joel Reynolds, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), says,
"This is a major victory for IFAW, NRDC and our millions of supporters around the world and shows what motivated people can do in the face of an horrendous environmental threat. It also shows that new models of activism -- using the internet -- to get the unfiltered truth to environmentally concerned citizens can work."
SOURCE: http://www.savebajawhales.com/index.html">International Fund for Animal Welfare
Date: Mon, 10 Mar, 2000
Ahousaht Feasts on Drowned Whale
By Denise Ambrose, Central Region Reporter - Nuu chah nulth news paper "Ha shilth sa"
A young grey whale that apparently drowned after becoming entangled in a net pond was towed to Ahousaht on Thursday, March 9. A traditional prayer chant was performed to honour the life of the whale. Seven Makah brothers and sisters were on hand to teach us how to butcher the whale.
The grey whale was the first to be taken ashore for consumption since 1963. Almost the entire community came to the beach to witness the butchering of the whale. Some were not interested in taking the whale meat; they came out to satisfy their curiosity and maybe take part in an historic event. Others were excited; young and old chewed thin slices of raw whale blubber as quickly as it was being cut up.
Ahousaht Fisheries personnel found the approximately three-year-old whale entangled in the net of a roe-on-kelp pond. Marion Campbell, Ahousaht Fisheries Manager, said that some of the staff went to the site in Sydney Inlet early on the morning of Wednesday, March 8 and found nothing unusual. They returned to the site with two biologists shortly after noon when they discovered the destroyed pond and the entangled whale. Two guardians donning diving gear went down to cut it free, but by then, it was too late, the whale was dead.
The destroyed pond was one of two ponds that Ahousaht is using to acquire herring roe on kelp. The herring and some of the kelp were released from the pond when the net was torn. The herring in the adjacent pond stopped spawning due to the commotion caused when the whale thrashed about trying to free itself.
Ahousaht Fisheries contacted DFO and were granted permission to repair and restock the herring ponds. Ahousaht would have lost more than half their roe-on-kelp had the nets left the water. DFO regulations state that the ponds must remain in place for about three weeks after the spawn in order to allow the eggs to hatch.
DFO was made aware that the whale carcass would be towed to Ahousaht for consumption. The whale reached the shore just before noon on Thursday, March 9. It would not be dissected until 4:00 pm when the tide went out.
It took considerable effort to turn the carcass over onto its belly. A heavy-duty truck and towrope succeeded where manpower and ropes proved to be a dismal failure. Our Makah relatives quickly got to work after the prayer ceremonies.
The Makah asked that their names not be publicised because of the threats and attacks that they have endured since their whale hunt almost a year ago. Suffice it to say that Ahousaht has great respect for our relatives, the Makah, and that their kindness and generosity is truly appreciated.
The first part that was removed was the "saddle" portion of blubber. In keeping with tradition, this most coveted portion was given to James Swan in whose traditional territory the whale was discovered. James says for now, the blubber is being stored in his deep freezer.
It took just over two hours to remove most of the blubber from the 31' 8" whale. During the evening and throughout the night community members trekked between the beach and their homes toting their share of the whale meat and blubber. The work continued until at least 9:00 the next morning.
James Swan said that the non-consumable portions of the whale were buried on the beach.
Ahousaht will host a whale feast and have tentatively set April 1 as the date for the feast.
Date: Sun, 19 Mar, 2000
Inuits Asks to Stage Whale Hunt
By Bob Weber -- The Canadian Press
IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) -- A third Canadian Inuit community wanting to revive its traditions has asked for ministerial approval to hunt and kill an endangered species of whale.
"It would mean a lot to us," said Louie Bruce of the Coral Harbour Hunters and Trappers Association.
"The last hunt was in the 1930s, so it's been a long wait."
The association from the tiny community on Southampton Island in Hudson Bay asked the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to get federal approval for them to hunt a bowhead whale.
A few facts on whaling and whale populations:
- The hunt -- Canada banned commercial hunt in 1972. Several international groups, including Makah aboriginal band from Washington state, favour reopening limited commercial hunt.
- The method -- Hunters say motorized boats and explosive harpoon mean quick, sure kill.
- The reason -- Inuit say cutting them off from whaling cuts them off from part of their heritage. Groups in U.S., Japan and Pacific make similar arguments.
- The whales -- Conservative estimates put Eastern Arctic bowhead population at 650. Numbers in Western Arctic are about 8,000.
- The status -- Bowhead currently classified endangered; some scientists dispute that.
The hunt would be held some time in mid-July, Bruce said.
"It depends how fast the ice goes," he said.
Board head Ben Kovic confirmed the request has been passed on to Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal.
"It's in the minister's hands right now," said Kovic. Dhaliwal has 60 days to decide whether or not to grant the request.
Kovic wouldn't say whether the management board supported the Coral Harbour request.
In 1996, the international community protested when Canada granted a licence for Inuit hunters in the Repulse Bay area to kill one bowhead whale.
Environmental groups protested a similar hunt conducted with an explosive harpoon from motorized boats off the Baffin Island community of Pangnirtung two years later.
Bowheads, giant sea mammals about the size of a city bus, were once a staple of the Inuit diet but were hunted to near extinction in the late 1800s. They are now an endangered species.
Their numbers are conservatively estimated at about 650 in the Eastern Arctic and some scientists say they should no longer be considered endangered. In the Western Arctic, the bowhead population is about 8,000 and aboriginal groups have been killing up to 80 a year.
In the East, where the year-old territory of Nunavut is championing a rebirth of Inuit culture, the hunt has special significance.
"There's elders here that still remember the last hunts," said Bruce. "They tell us quite a bit of stories and they can't wait to get going on this one."
The Coral Harbour hunters watched the Pangnirtung hunt on television, Bruce said. Coral Harbour also got its share of the blubber -- an Inuit delicacy called muktuk -- but that only whetted the local hunters' appetite for their own whale.
"We only got a little bit of muktuk. They gave us a little bit of a taste but it wasn't enough."
Groups such as the Canadian Marine Environment Protection Society say the Inuit hunts and those by the Makah whalers in Washington state are the start of a resumption of commercial whaling.
The International Whaling Commission voted 20-6 to oppose the Pangnirtung hunt.
However, the World Wildlife Fund points out that hasn't happened with the bowhead hunts in the Western Arctic.
As well, the Wildlife Fund maintains the hunt is in the best long-term interest of the bowhead population because it ensures that local populations have a direct, ongoing interest in maintaining its numbers.
Some anthropologists say eating wild food taken from the local land and water is important and deeply meaningful to hunting cultures.
"We've been wanting to hunt whales a long time," Bruce said.
"My grandfather used to hunt them and he's still around. Seeing this hunt come to reality would be a dream come true."
Date: Wed, 22 Mar, 2000
Bahamas Test Coincides With Whale Deaths
By Jessica Robertson - The Associated Press
FREEPORT, Bahamas -- Eight whales beached and died soon after the U.S. Navy conducted anti-submarine exercises off the northern Bahamas, prompting an investigation and calls for an end to the exercises. The Navy said Tuesday that there was no evidence to link the whale deaths to last week's exercise testing sonar detection of submarines.
Navy Cmdr. Greg Smith said the tests took place from about 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. March 15 off Abaco Island -- part of a series of exercises testing "sonar buoys" that were to continue through March 22.
Marine biologist Ken Balcomb of the Earthwatch environmental group said beachings began that same day, and within two days at least 14 whales had grounded themselves on Abaco, Grand Bahama to the north, and Eleuthera to the south. Eight died, prompting investigations by Bahamian and U.S. scientists and authorities.
"A whale beaching in the Bahamas is a once-in-a-decade occurrence," said Balcomb, an American who has been studying whales around Abaco island for nine years.
"We will be making recommendations to the Bahamian government that these sort of exercises be terminated," he said. "The fact that it coincides with the military exercises cannot be just coincidental."
But the Navy spokesman said there was no evidence linking the two events.
"My understanding of the actual locations would put the island between the operations where the 'sonobuoys' were located and where the whales eventually beached themselves," said Smith.
Naomi Rose of the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States, maintained the signals could still do damage.
"These signals, depending on frequency, could travel quite a distance and could even wrap around the island," said Rose, a marine mammal scientist.
"One could argue that they fled the area where the sonar was being transmitted."
Charles Potter of the Smithsonian Institute, another U.S. marine biologist here to investigate, said the number of whales beached is "extremely unusual. But he said the postmortems showed the whales had suffered no physical damage, such as broken ear drums.
Balcomb said the mammals included several deep-water beaked whales, goose beaked whales measuring 16 to 19 feet, dense beaked whales measuring 10 to13 feet, baleen whales measuring up to 27 feet and some small minke whales.
Further tests on the dead whales would be carried out in the United States, a process that could take months.
Smith said the exercise was testing for upgrades of what the Navy calls the Directional Command Activated Sonobuoy System.
The exercise involved a Navy P-3 aircraft dropping two buoys north of Abaco, one as close as 35 miles to the island, the other 70 to 75 miles from the island. One buoy emitted a sonar signal which was received by the other, and a submarine was moving between the two buoys.
© Copyright 2000, The Salt Lake Tribune
Date: Wed, 29 Mar, 2000
Whales Set to Raise Passions at U.N.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Japan and Norway, against heavy resistance from other countries, will push for United Nations clearance for commercial whaling at a conservation conference in Nairobi next month, officials said Wednesday.
The gathering of signatory countries to the U.N.'s Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), is also likely to witness a clash setting Kenya and India against states in southern Africa over sales of elephant ivory.
"We expect a lively meeting," CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers of the Netherlands told a news briefing on the conference, running in the Kenyan capital from April 10 to 20.
Other endangered wildlife and plant species whose fate could be decided at the conference include great white sharks, the "living fossil" 400 million-year-old coelacanth fish, a South Asian tarantula and Argentina's monkey puzzle tree.
Another top issue will be a Cuban request for permission for a one-off sale to Japan of shells of the threatened Hawksbill turtle.
Wijnstekers and his deputy, Jim Armstrong of Australia, made clear that the CITES Secretariat was unlikely to support the Japanese and Norwegians, or the Kenyans and Indians who want to ban any future ivory sales.
Wijnstekers said the two major whaling nations were seeking to have CITES move grey and minke whales from the U.N. agency's listing of animal species in which all trade is banned to another list allowing regulated trading.
But they were only coming to CITES because they had failed to have the International Whaling Commission (IWC), of which they are both members, permit the commercial exploitation of grey and minke whales.
"CITES is obliged to make its decisions in conformity with those of the IWC," said Wijnstekers.
"Since they cannot achieve their objectives in the IWC, these two countries are now trying to make CITES take the lead."
"But CITES cannot take the first step on whales."
The IWC has banned all commercial whaling since 1986. But Norway and Japan insist they have the right to "scientific" catches -- a loophole their critics say is a cover for whaling for profit and putting the entire species in further danger.
The Swiss-based World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF- International), the major non-governmental global conservation body, said Wednesday it also strongly opposed any change in the CITES listing.
Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited.
Date: Sat, 01 Apr, 2000
MAKAH: Judge dismisses charge against tribal officer
FORKS (AP) - A judge has dismissed charges against a Makah tribal police officer accused of roughing up anti-whaling protesters at Neah Bay in November 1998, saying the matter falls within federal jurisdiction.
Eric Svenson - fired by the tribe earlier this month after a stint as police chief - was a patrol officer when activists mounted a campaign against the Makah for seeking to resurrect their whaling tradition. The tribe killed its first gray whale in 70 years last spring.
Svenson had been accused of two counts of fourth-degree assault, a gross misdemeanor. Larry King, a visiting judge, filed his six-page dismissal ruling this week in Clallam County District Court in Forks.
At a hearing earlier this month, Svenson's attorneys noted that federal authorities reviewed the assault allegations and decided the matter did not warrant any action.
County prosecutors brought two counts of fourth-degree assault against Svenson in March 1999, accusing him of using excessive force in dealing with protesters the tribe considered to have trespassed by coming ashore.
Because Svenson is not a tribal member, they argued, the state could pursue charges against him.
"There's a difference between charging a non-Indian and charging a tribal officer who's non-Indian. That's not the state's role," Svenson's criminal lawyer, Allen Ressler of Seattle, said Wednesday.
"The judge made the right decision here," he said.
"I think it helps preserve sovereignty to the individual tribe by telling the state not to interfere with the way tribal police conduct their business."
Chris Melly, Clallam County's chief civil deputy prosecutor, said a decision on whether to appeal rests with Prosecuting Attorney Chris Shea, who was out of the office until next Tuesday.
"I'm certainly disappointed, but I can't say we're surprised," Melly said.
"We're on the cutting edge of the law here."
Both sides agree it's the first time a court has attempted to address whether the state can prosecute non-Indian employees for acts committed on reservation land.
"Theoretically, this could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. It's that kind of case," Melly said.
A first appeal would go either to Clallam County Superior Court or the state Supreme Court.
Svenson was fired as police chief by the Makah Tribal Council last week. Tribal members had complained about Svenson's conduct, which included jailing a pair of young children for an hour for trespassing.
Lt. Bill Mahone has been named acting chief.
Date: Mon, 03 Apr, 2000
Conference under Pressure to Lift Whaling Ban
Canberra, AAP - The future of endangered whales could hinge on the outcome of next week's endangered species trading convention, conservationists said today.
Whaling nations Japan and Norway will pressure member nations to end a global moratorium on commercial whaling at the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to be held in Nairobi from April 10 to 20.
Also on the agenda will be the ivory trade and an Australian move to ban trade in the jaws, fins and oil from great white sharks.
Moves to lift the whaling ban on grey and minke whales are expected to spark passionate opposition from Australia and other nations, with warnings that allowing restricted trade will result in a commercial whaling bonanza.
"Governments voting at the Cites meeting must realise that a demolishing of whales will lead to increased catches and pave the way to a resumption of commercial whaling worldwide," Greenpeace's Shane Raconteur told journalists today.
"If these demolishing proposals are successful, whale hunting will increase dramatically over the coming years and we will see species pushed to the brink of extinction yet again."
Conservationists also claim Japan has been bullying smaller nations to support its bid by threatening to withhold financial aid, endangering moves by nations including Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom to protect the whaling ban.
"The Japanese have made it perfectly clear that Japan is using those funds to influence smaller nations," Mr Raconteur said.
"We've seen a very aggressive and perhaps unscrupulous programme of lobbying by Japan. We have also noticed that Norway has visited many of the countries that are members of Cites."
Whaling nations failed to have the ban lifted at the International Whaling Commission.
But a Cites decision, by a much larger membership, to lift the ban would be more influential, difficult to overturn and could change the international attitude towards whaling, perhaps ending hopes for a South Pacific Ocean whaling sanctuary.
Australia will also call for a ban on commercial fishing of great white sharks, a move that has won the support of several peak conservation bodies, including the Humane Society International, Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
"Great white shark jaws are highly prized by international collectors, and they can fetch prices as high as $US10,000 ($NZ20,385)" the humane society's Nicola Banana said.
But environmentalists said the Australian government had ignored other threatened species, such at the southern bluefin tuna and the Patagonian toothfish.
Australia will be supported by the UK and the US, which will be nominating the basking shark and whale shark respectively.
Trade bans on African elephants will also be the subject of intense debate, with moves from Kenya and India to overturn Cites's 1997 decision to remove trade bans on elephant populations in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Other African countries claim the decision resulted in increased elephant poaching and invigorated the ivory black market.
Date: Wed, 05 Apr, 2000
Surfer Fined for Riding Alex the Whale
Sydney, AAP - It may have been the ride of his life, but surfer Jason Roberts says he won't be riding whales again.
The 26-year-old chef was yesterday fined $A1500 ($NZ1830) plus court costs for riding Alex the whale during her visit to Sydney Harbour last year.
Roberts pleaded guilty in Waverley Local Court to a charge of approaching a marine mammal closer than the prescribed distance at Bondi Beach on August 18.
The 12-metre, 50-tonne Southern Right, nicknamed Alex, cruised Sydney Harbour for several weeks during its annual migration from Antarctica to the warmer climes of southern Australia.
Roberts today said he regretted the incident, but did not know it was illegal to approach the animal.
"I didn't know it was illegal," he told AAP.
"I feel pretty stupid now."
New South Wales Environment Minister Bob Debus said there were several reasons why people were not allowed to approach whales.
"With Southern Right whales weighing in at up to 80 tonnes, the regulations are there to protect the public as much as they are there to protect the whale from stress and harm," Mr Debus said in a statement.
He said while it was a privilege to witness the awe-inspiring creatures, "we must show them the utmost respect".
Under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, swimmers and divers must stay 30 metres from the animals, vessels should stay up to 300 metres away and jet skis 400 metres away.
Roberts said Alex swam underneath him as he surfed at Bondi and later started frolicking about five metres from his board.
He paddled over and held its tail, which Alex flicked away.
Roberts then untied his leg rope and swam over to the whale and grabbed its tail.
"If it didn't want me near it, it would let me know," Roberts said.
"It would have taken a chomp out of me or nudged me, or something."
Date: Fri, 07 Apr, 2000
Moray Firth Dolphins Under Threat
Moray, Scotland -- The dolphins in the Moray Firth could be under threat A leading naturalist has warned Scotland's only resident colony of bottle-nosed dolphins could starve to death in the Moray Firth.
He also claimed the world's most northerly pod of the dolphins might disappear from the Highland coastline in less than 50 years unless steps are taken to help them.
Tony Archer, of the Moray Firth Wildlife Centre in Spey Bay, in Moray, said the 129-strong-group is steadily shrinking due to pollution, human interference from boats and a lack of fish.
But it is the poor availability of food which is particularly worrying conservationists. Mr Archer said:
"This colony seems to be disappearing steadily year by year, at a rate of about 6% per annum."
"There are a number of contributing factors. The popular belief is that pollution is causing the population decrease, but we now believe it is due to the lack of food available in the Moray Firth."
As female dolphins die the chances of a population resurgence diminish.
It is also feared that of dolphins are under threat then other mammals like whales could also be at risk.
Mr Archer said: "The only way forward is for experts to investigate what is going wrong.
"We need to be able to eliminate any possible threats. For example we think that dolphins get caught in nets being set illegally in the sea by salmon poachers."
The dolphin colony is a popular tourist attraction in the Moray Firth area and is thought to contribute substantially to the local economy.
Boats carrying sightseers operate from a number of ports, including Inverness, Cromarty and Nairn.
Mr Archer said he the noise of boats' engines disrupts essential sound communication between mothers and their calves.
The animals do not seem worried by the vessels, but Mr Archer says any communication breakdown between adults and their offspring can lead to the calves becoming confused and damaged by the propellers of any circulating leisure boats.
The Moray Firth pod lives in colder waters than any others, as this is the most northerly colony on Earth.
Britain's only other resident dolphins live in the water of Cardigan Bay, off West Wales, although they are visitors to inshore waters round several parts of the British Isles.
Date: Fri, 07 Apr, 2000
Japanese Ships net 439 Minke Whales
TOKYO, [The Times of India]: Two Japanese ships returned home on Thursday after catching 439 Minke whales in the Antarctic on a hunt that began last year, officials said.
The haul was just one short of 440, the maximum number allowed for Japanese scientific whaling under an International Whaling Commission agreement, said Fisheries Agency official Michitoshi Nabeshima.
The Nisshin Maru, carrying the haul, and a ship that counted the number of whales in the Antarctic arrived in Kushiro, 890 kilometers (552 miles), northwest of Tokyo, Thursday morning. Three other boats arrived in two separate ports in southwestern Japan on Tuesday.
Last year, Japan caught 389 minke whales in the Antarctic. Japan has annually conducted what it calls research whaling since 1987, one year after the IWC banned commercial whaling, although environmentalists are critical of any whaling in the Antarctic. Under the program, the five Japanese ships set sail in November last year.
Nabeshima said data on the death rates and living habits collected in the research will be submitted to an IWC meeting in Adelaide, Australia, in June. Meat from the whales will be sold in Japan this summer, with proceeds going to the whaling industry. Environmentalists say such sales encourage illegal whaling.
Date: Sat, 08 Apr, 2000
Gray Whale Meat Shows up in Japanese Market
The endangered Asian population of the gray whale could be threatened by Japanese proposals to downgrade the level of protection offered to the larger northeastern Pacific population, wildlife conservationists and researchers have warned.
Concern has been raised by an analysis of whale products in Japanese shops, which showed that some of the meat on sale came from gray whales.
Japan argues that American gray whale population now totals more than 22,000 and therefore should be downlisted. But the Asian population of Gray whale is estimated at no more than 100 individuals.
According to researchers from the University of Auckland, DNA analysis of the products on sale in Wakayama prefecture, on Japan's Pacific coast, showed that they came from a gray whale. But the researchers could not specify which population the DNA came from - northeastern Pacific, American or Asian.
Researchers believe that the products sampled came from an Asian Gray whale found floating near the northern island of Hokkaido in 1996. Although the whale was reported as being 'stranded', a later investigation revealed that it had been harpooned, with a section of its tail expertly severed.
This goes to prove conservationists claims that possibly illegal products from endangered species are turning up in the commercial market. Any resumption in commercial trade will simply act as a 'cover' for more illegal whale meat to find its way onto the lucrative Japanese market. WDCS notes that Japan is claiming that it is able to monitor and police its own domestic markets but recent research has revealed that not only that meat products from endangered species are freely available, but that a considerable amount of the meat is mislabelled and contains toxic compounds.
In November 1999, The Japan Times reported, "... an international group of scientists released a report documenting high levels of contamination in the meat and organs of Japanese coastal whale products. The researchers tested cetacean products purchased in six Japanese cities, including meat and organs from dolphins, porpoises and minke whales, though most products were advertised simply as kujira (whale). 130 samples were analyzed, 113 were identified using DNA testing, and 61 samples were tested for contamination.
Ministry spokesmen and wholesalers have tried to assure market players that whale meat and organs are safe, but consumer groups and retailers are sceptical. Buyers have begun cancelling orders for cetacean products.'......The scientists [who carried out the study], two from the U.S. and one each from Japan and England, confirmed that "many products sold as whale meat contain environmental toxins of several sorts," and "exceed safe levels for human consumption."
Date: Sun, 09 Apr, 2000
Another Southern Resident Orca Now Missing
TSAWWASSAN, BC - Researchers and environmentalists are now analysing the apparent disappearence of J-10, known locally as 'Tahoma', from her pod. J-10, whose son J-18 was recently discovered dead in British Columbia, has not been seen since early winter and is also feared by many in the region to be dead.
"Orcas that disappear from their family groups for extended periods are almost always dead," says Michael Kundu, Director of Project SeaWolf. If further observations conclude that J-18 does not reappear with her group by later this Spring, researchers will concede that the female matriarch has died, just like her son did earlier this winter. Researchers estimate that J-10 was approximately 38 years of age; the average life-span of female orcas is generally believed to be between 80 to 100 years.
"If J-18 is indeed dead -- and all signs seem to indicate she is -- then there is definately something afoot and contributing to the early death rate of our southern resident pods." J-10's (presumed) remaining daughter, J-22, is now the assumed eldest remaining female in the sub-group.
Last month, the body of J-10's son (J-18) was found adrift off Tsawwassan, British Columbia. Early necropsy results indicate that the bull orca was heavily ladden with PCB's (poly-chlorinated biphenyls), and that the accumulated toxins had probably contributed to his early death.
"It would be a natural conclusion that, if J-18 died partially as a result of accumulated PCB's in his tissue, his mother's body would have had to contain abnormally high levels of the toxin as well," adds Kundu. While PCB's accumulate in all living whales, female orcas tend to be able to slightly reduce the levels of toxin when they nurse their young -- male orcas do not have that ability, and consequently, their accumulation of PCBs is generally much higher than females.
"It's not surprising that J-10 would succumb early as well -- it wouldn't be a surprise if the next dead orca also comes from their specific sub-pod."
The southern orca population now rests at 81 animals. In light of the recent accelaration of orca decline, Project SeaWolf will immediately review whether to now send a formal request to the National Marine Fisheries Service, asking the agency to initiate consideration of the southern resident orca population as a candidate species federal 'Endangered' status.
Project SeaWolf
P.O. Box 987, Marysville, WA 98270
Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~projseawolf/ecos.htm
Date: Mon, 10 Apr, 2000
What price sustaining a species?
By environment correspondent Alex Kirby
To many people, it seems straightforward, rational and humane to outlaw the killing of whales and elephants. They are the biggest examples of "charismatic megafauna" - flagship species that compel awe and affection from their human admirers. But Cites, the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, is debating an end to the present bans on selling whale and elephant products. And if it does not agree to lift the bans at this meeting, in Nairobi, then sooner or later it almost certainly will. When the bans end, it ought not to spell disaster for either species. But in the long run it probably will.
An arguable case
Those who oppose the bans - Japan and Norway the whaling countries, several southern African states wanting to sell elephant products - do have a case that deserves a hearing. The problem is that any limited agreement by Cites to trade whalemeat, or ivory and elephant hides, across frontiers could open the door to an uncontrolled slaughter.
The poachers await Cites' vote
There are 12 species of great whale, and the hunters want to kill two of them, the minke and the grey whale. The greys, which undertake an annual 20,000-kilometre annual migration between Mexico and the Arctic, number about 22,000 - probably enough for a limited catch. There are thought to be more than a million minkes, far more than the minimum number required to allow a sustainable catch rate. But many of the 10 other great whale species have barely begun to recover from the centuries of commercial slaughter. Some may never do so. And it would be all too easy for unscrupulous governments, or freelance pirate whaling fleets, to hunt these species as well.
Easy to confuse
It is possible to distinguish between the meat of different whale species by using DNA analysis. Japan and Norway plan to do so. But not many customs posts around the world have the equipment or the expertise to analyse a consignment of whalemeat and decide whether it is from the abundant minkes or the very rare and endangered blue whales.
There are similar arguments to support maintaining the ban on ivory sales from African elephants, imposed by Cites in 1989. Poaching reduced the continent's elephants drastically. From an estimated 1,300,000 animals at the beginning of the 1970s, fewer than half that number survived 15 years later.
Future generations are threatened
Yet although Africa as a whole has lost huge numbers of animals, in some of the states wanting the ban lifted there are now too many elephants - too many for their own good and for the health of their habitat. But if Cites allows sales of ivory - even from animals which have died naturally - it will be all too easy for the poachers to take aim again, confident they will be able to camouflage illegal tusks among those with official approval.
There are many more arguments on both sides. The conservationists say killing whales is an imprecise, hit-and-miss and often cruel business, which should be banned outright.
Paying their way
The whalers and the ivory traders argue that they want to make sustainable use of natural resources, using the proceeds to support human communities and protect the natural world. Science, they say, supports them, with the conservationists forced to rely on sentiment alone. The only species likely to survive in this crowded world are those which can prove their economic worth, so that we value them enough to conserve them.
In the short term, then, ending the whale and elephant bans should be good news for both species. The snag is that those who stand to make the biggest profits from seeing the bans ended have the least interest in conservation.
BBC News Online
Date: Wed, 12 Apr, 2000
Cites Conference Wrangles over easing Whale Moratorium
The CITES conference on protecting endangered species saw wrangling Tuesday over a Norwegian and Japanese attempt to ease the moratorium on whaling worldwide.
Delegates at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Nairobi were to decide on whether to continue observing decisions taking by the International Whaling Commission, which imposed the moratorium in 1986.
Severing the link between the two bodies' decisions would "mean two controlling bodies that would talk past each other instead of using their synergic effect," said Julian Bauer of the Eco Terra International environmentalist group.
This and other groups including Greenpeace staunchly oppose the bid by Norway and Japan to relax the ban on hunting minke and grey whales.
Representatives of ten non-governmental organizations and lobby groups at the conference also opposed a call by some African countries for some trade to be allowed in ivory.
Will Trevers, chief executive of Born Free Foundation, a conservation group, told journalists in Nairobi independent research in southern African countries showed an increase in ivory poaching following a limited sale granted to Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana.
Speculation of a resumption of trade in ivory had in fact resulted in the slaughter of between 300-400 elephants, he said.
Differences over ivory trade had dominated Monday's opening of the ten-day international conference on the protection of endangered species of flora and fauna.
Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, in his opening address to the 11th CITES conference, appealed for a total ban in ivory trade until elephant poaching can be controlled.
Unlike Kenya, other African nations want some trade to be allowed. India has backed Kenya's plea for a complete ban in ivory trade.
The conference is due to consider proposals affecting controls or trading bans on 62 species, including the Indian tiger, the bottlenose dolphin, the rattlesnake and the Korean ginseng.
Date: Sat, 15 Apr, 2000
Japan's Proposals Rejected at CITES
PROPOSALS ON TRADE IN GREY, MINKE WHALES REJECTED
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sapa-AP -- In a major setback Saturday, Japan and Norway lost bids to win international approval for limited trade in Gray and Minke whales.
In secret ballots, 53 countries attending the U.N. conference on trade in endangered species voted against a Japanese proposal which would have allowed controlled trade of the Gray whale. Forty countries voted in favor of the plan and nine abstained.
Delegates also rejected two other Japanese proposals to allow controlled trade in Minke whales located in the southern hemisphere and in an area from the Okhotsak Sea to the western Pacific Ocean.
A Norwegian proposal to allow limited hunting of the Minke whale in the northeastern Atlantic was also rejected.
All hunting of Minke whales is currently outlawed.
The decisions still could be overturned when the measures go before a plenary session next week of the 11th conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, of CITES. Some 2,000 delegates representing 151 countries are attending the 10-day forum in the Kenyan capital that ends Thursday.
Despite the chance of a reversal, supporters of a continued total ban on any trade in Gray and Minke whale products were elated by Saturday's vote.
"This is a big victory for nature," said Kurt Oddekalv, president of the Norwegian Environmental Organization.
But Norwegian delegation head, Peter Johan Schei, called the defeat of his contry's Minke whale proposal "small for Norway but big for scientists."
"It is a very big defeat for CITES as a credible organization," he said, adding that such decisions should be made on a scientific, not an emotional basis.
In additional action on Friday:
- CITES officials turned down a request by Kenya to allow controlled trade of the pancake tortoise. Only 300 such tortoises are believed to exist in the East African nation.
- Citing lack of support from delegates, officials asked the United States to withdraw its bid to place allow only limited trade in the bottlenose dolphin.
- A ban on all trade in ten medicinal plants was approved. "We really have to concentrate on the (plants) that are endangered and need help," said Bertrand Von Arx, head of the CITES committee on plants.
- Uganda and Malawi backed a continuation of Tanzania's annual export quota of 1,600 Nile crocodiles.
Date: Mon, 17 Apr, 2000
Australia Welcomes Renewed Whale Meat Ban
From Senator the Hon Robert Hill
Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill says Australia's ongoing campaign against commercial whaling has been boosted by an international decision reaffirming a ban on the trade of whale meat. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting in Nairobi has voted against a proposal by Japan and Norway to allow commercial trade from three stocks of Minke whale and the eastern pacific Gray whale.
Since the mid 1980's CITES has not permitted trade in whale products, including meat, in support of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial take of great whales. The latest vote were overwhelming against allowing trade with none of the proposals gaining even a simple majority. A majority of two-thirds support was required to allow trade to start. Of particular interest to Australia was Japan's proposal to allow commercial trade in whale products taken in the Southern Ocean. This was overwhelmingly rejected with 46 votes for the proposal compared to 69 votes against.
"This strong vote vindicates the stand taken by Australia and like-minded countries which have lobbied
for the permanent protection of the world's whale species," Senator Hill said.
"It is interesting to note that the number of countries opposed to resuming trade in whale products has increased now compared to the last CITES meeting in 1997.
"This is further evidence to countries like Japan and Norway who support whaling that international public opinion is turning against them and that more people believe these great creatures should be able to live freely without the threat of being hunted."
Senator Hill said the CITES vote is a modest step forward as Australia steps up its opposition to whaling prior to the next IWC meeting in Adelaide in June. At that meeting the Howard Government will actively promote its case for a system of global whale sanctuaries, in particular the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary, jointly supported by the New Zealand.
Date: Mon, 17 Apr, 2000
So Much For Saving The Whales
By Sharon Begley and Thomas Hayden - Newsweek
"Commercial whaling has been illegal throughout the world since 1986. But the creatures could soon find themselves back on the menu. Why?"
Although no one is taking responsibility, it looks as if the '70s' comeback has not been limited to bell-bottomed characters on television and in movies or soul redux in music.
On Feb. 26 of this year the Norwegian whaling vessel Villduen was destroyed in an explosion that sent it to the bottom of Fredrikstad Harbor in 30 minutes. (The captain escaped with burns and a broken leg.) Anti-whaling groups have been almost as obsessed with the Villduen as Ahab was with Moby: for years the vessel has sliced off the most expensive cuts of the minke whales it killed in the North Atlantic, dumped the 90 percent of the carcass it didn't want and repeated steps one and two until its hold was filled with whale meat. The waste seemed almost designed to infuriate the save-the-whales crowd. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has sunk nine whaling vessels, denied responsibility for the Villduen's demise, but added, "Nonetheless, we are pleased for the whales!" Of all the environmental battles that greens thought had been won for good, "Save the Whales" trumps even reducing the erosion of the ozone layer. It was the issue that vaulted Greenpeace into the first ranks of enviro groups-its first action against a whaling ship came on June 16, 1975, off California-and the cause that became a bumper sticker long before anyone thought of saving a rain forest.
But this week in Nairobi, at a meeting of the 151 nations that decide the rules for buying and selling endangered species, the whales could be unsaved. Norway and Japan, fed up with a ban they regard as scientifically suspect, have proposed allowing a commercial catch of minke whales, which has been banned since a 1986 global moratorium that also covers great whales like blues, finbacks, rights and sperm. Japan has proposed trade in the gray whales of the Eastern Pacific, a migratory population that cruises the California and Mexico coasts, drawing throngs of whale watchers, and whose commercial exploitation has been banned since 1949.
"If people want to see the last decades of whale conservation wiped out in one vote," says biologist Gerry Leape of the National Environmental Trust, "this is it."
Money is powering this boat. The 1982 ban on whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission is so toothless that Norway and Japan have continued to hunt whales, especially minkes, which many consider a delicacy. Japan gets around the IWC ban by calling its hunt "scientific whaling" (which means killing up to 440 minkes each year in the Southern Ocean to determine, among other things, how many whales of what ages the Antarctic stock includes). Norway gets to ignore the ban because it filed an objection when the ban was first imposed; now Norway kills up to 753 minkes a year in the North Atlantic. The real obstacle to more extensive whaling is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), whose ban against buying and selling whale products is legally binding. Since Norway and Japan can consume only so much whale meat, if they cannot export it there's no economic incentive to up the kill. That's why only international trade can spur a resumption of commercial whaling, says Richard Mott of the World Wildlife Fund. Russia, which also objects to the IWC moratorium, is especially hungry for the hard currency that whaling promises (whale meat fetches $90 per pound in Japan). With no moratorium, "we'll see Russia back on the high seas killing tens of thousands of whales within a few years," Leape predicts.
The Japan Whaling Association insists that minkes simply do not deserve the CITES protection they now enjoy. "That designation is for wildlife in imminent danger of extinction," says Alan Macnow, who represents the association in the United States. With 1 million minkes world- wide and 760,000 around Antarctica alone, he argues they simply don't qualify. Japan also blames the minkes for hurting blue whales (population: 1,000, down from half a million in 1900) by scarfing down too much of their food.
Environmentalists, who don't oppose subsistence whaling such as that practiced by the Inuit in Alaska, view commercial whaling as a threat to the seas themselves. Beyond the emotional don't-kill-Shamu argument that brings out the activists is a biological argument against commercial whaling: the abundant minke might not be the only whale on the menu. Once trade resumes, hunters could not only take the minke, but also kill whales from still-protected stocks. DNA tests can distinguish sperm-whale meat from, say, minke, but such tests are not exactly routine before whale meat winds up as sashimi. And DNA tests cannot tell Antarctic minke (fair game) from Pacific minke (off-limits). If commercial minke whaling resumes, "endangered species would be on the market as well," says Vassili Papastavrou of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
"Even today humpbacks and blue whales are on the market in Japan, and it's unclear where they come from."
Japan says they are from frozen stores stockpiled before the ban. And as more whales are killed, some of their prey will thrive, possibly threatening the ecological balance of the seas.
At the Nairobi meeting, whales aren't the only animals in the dock. Four proposals would make it once again legal to sell African elephant ivory (up to 30 tons per year from South Africa, 12 tons from Botswana, 10 tons from Zimbabwe). The United States is undecided on the elephant proposals but plans to oppose commercial whaling. Both votes are too close to call. Japan will also make its case to the International Whaling Commission.
"The IWC is too anti-whaling and does not represent the views of the global community," says Nobuyuki Yagi of the Japanese Embassy. Japan has been packing the IWC with countries willing to vote for whaling. What happens if minke and gray whales become fair game?
"First we'll mourn, then we'll get down to it," says Leape.
"You can expect Greenpeace to be [out] with its fleet going after these guys."
If that comes about, the world will get a grim reminder that bell-bottoms weren't the worst thing about the '70s.
© 2000 Newsweek, Inc.
Date: Tue, 18 Apr, 2000
Japan Vows to Seek Commercial Whaling
By Teruaki Ueno
TOKYO, April 18 (Reuters) - Japan, the world's largest consumer of whale meat, said on Tuesday it would not abandon its bid to overturn an international ban on commercial whaling despite a weekend setback.
Japan has come under heavy fire from many non-whaling nations and conservationist groups for killing hundreds of minke wales each year.
On Saturday in Nairobi, government delegates from 150 nations at the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rejected proposals from Japan and Norway to allow trade in specific populations of grey and minke whales.
"We will continue to assert our position that the ban on commercial whaling should be lifted," Jiro Hyuga, an official at the Fisheries Ministry, told Reuters.
Minke whales in the Antarctic are so numerous that they threaten the survival of other marine species and hamper the population growth of whales with low fertility rates, he said.
The Fisheries Ministry said last month that by following a new computer programme developed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), whales can be hunted safely without threat of extinction.
Japan gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium that went into effect in 1986 but has been carrying out what it calls "scientific research" whaling since 1987.
According to the IWC data, minke whales are so numerous they no longer are threatened with extinction. Their population was estimated at 760,000 in the Antarctic Ocean, 87,000 in the northeast Atlantic and 25,000 in the north Pacific.
Japan argues that up to 2,000 minke whales can be hunted each year without endangering the species.
A fleet of Japanese whaling ships returned home earlier this month after hunting 439 minke whales in the Antarctic under a loophole that permits the scientific whaling.
Hyuga said about 2,000 tonnes of meat from minke whales killed for "research purposes" were sold in domestic markets each year.
Profits from the whalemeat sales were used to cover the cost for sending whaling ships to the Antarctica, he said. The costs of such research whaling was around 4.0 billion yen ($38.24 million) a year.
"Whale meat that is sold on the markets is a by-product of our research. It must been effectively used," he said.
An official of the Institute of Cetacean Research that conducts research whaling on behalf of the Japanese Fisheries Agency said he saw no in killing whales.
"Japan is surrounded by oceans, and therefore we must make effective use of marine resouces available," the official said.
Naoki Inose, a famous Japanese writer, came to the defence of the Japanese government's position.
"The Japanese did not catch more whales than they needed to eat," Inose said in an article in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper. "It is my desire that people gain a better understanding of cultural differences regarding whales."
In 1965, Japan caught a record 22,000 whales in coastal and Antarctic waters. The number fell to 2,700 by 1987, partly as a result of quotas set by the IWC and partly because of the availability of cheaper sources of protein.
After World War Two, the government rationed whalemeat to help to save its starving people from malnutrition. But in the last decade or so, the plunge in supply and rise in prices has transformed whalemeat into a gourmet food.
($1 US = 104.60 Yen)
Date: Tue, 18 Apr, 2000
Makahs Return to the Sea for Whale Hunt
Coast Guard arrests two protesters, seizes boat
NEAH BAY, Wash. [AP] A Makah whaling family set out Monday in the tribe's first gray whale hunt of the spring, but the crew returned without killing a whale. The Coast Guard arrested two protesters and seized their boat.
While tribal leaders insist the seasonal hunt -- a centuries-old tradition that resumed after a 70-year absence with the first kill in May -- is vital to preserving the Makah identity, anti-whaling activists fear it could open the door to a worldwide renewal of commercial whaling.
Ben Johnson, chairman of the Makah Tribal Council, confirmed that tribal leaders had issued a 10-day whaling permit to the Paul Parker family.
A canoe carrying the whaling crew, and a motorized Makah support boat, returned here late Monday afternoon without killing a whale. A tribal whaling crew, with representatives from several families, took the Makah's first whale last May 17. Now the hunts are being conducted by Makah families, as tradition dictates.
Five families have been preparing to hunt as this year's spring gray whale migration from birthing grounds in Mexico to feeding grounds off Alaska gets under way, tribal whaling commission president Keith Johnson said.
Protest groups led by Ocean Defense International have been monitoring the area by boat.
The Coast Guard is enforcing a 500-yard exclusion zone around the whale hunt, and said Monday's arrests and boat seizure were prompted by violation of that zone.
When the driver of the seized 23-foot boat refused to stop, the vessel was bumped or "shouldered" by a 21-foot Coast Guard boat, said Petty Officer Gino Burns in Seattle. When that didn't work, a 41-foot Coast Guard boat bumped the vessel, knocking down the two protesters on board.
The driver, Bill Moss of Olympia -- a member of the group World Whale Police -- was still in custody Monday afternoon, Burns said. The woman, who complained of back pain after her fall, was checked by a doctor and released.
Ocean Defense International spokesman Jonathan Paul identified her as Julie Woodyear of Toronto.
The Makah whaling tradition dates back thousands of years, but the hunts stopped in the 1920s as commercial whaling decimated populations. When the gray whale was taken off the Endangered Species List in 1994, the tribe moved to resume the practice, citing whaling rights granted under a 1855 treaty.
In 1997, the effort was cleared by the International Whaling Commission, which allocated the Makah 20 whales through 2004, a maximum of five per year.
The hunts, supported by the federal government, have pitted the Makah, their supporters and the federal government against animal-conservation activists.
When the tribe prepared to resume the hunts in late 1998, conservation groups staked out Neah Bay for months, hoping to protect the southbound fall migration. Several protest boats also were seized last year by the Coast Guard.
© Associated Press
Date: Tue, 18 Apr, 2000
Norway Threatens to Ignore Whale Product Ban
NAIROBI, Sapa-dpa -- Angered by a ban on international trade in products of the minke whale, Norway said Tuesday it might ignore a resolution to be passed at this week's conference in Nairobi on endangered species.
A Norwegian delegate said his country would ignore the ban and trade in whalemeat and blubber, provoking a rejoinder from the environmentalist group Greenpeace International that international opinion weighed heavily against a resumption of commercial whaling.
"Norway should accept this and end its persistent efforts to resume the trade and respect international opinion," said John Frizell of Greenpeace.
Norway's European Union (E.U.) neighbours were meanwhile at loggerheads with one another over whether to ban trade in products of the great white shark and of the hawksbill turtle. The E.U. has wielded unusual power at the meeting by voting so far as a bloc.
Tuesday was the last day of committee meetings at the conference of parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) with plenary sessions to follow on Wednesday.
Both the German delegation and environmentalist groups were angered at growing E.U. willingness to allow limited sales of turtle shells and shark fins and jaws. Greenpeace spokesman Peter Pueschel said this threw the door open to trade in species facing extinction.
Cuba has called for controlled sales of turtle shell since it has a healthy population of the creatures. Officially the hawksbill is one of eight turtle species on the verge of extinction.
Roland Melisch, head of the WWF Germany delegation, said he had been told some European states were leaning to a compromise with Cuba whereby existing stocks of turtle shell would be sold to Japan in a once-only arrangement.
E.U. delegation chief Christoph Bail confirmed this was possible, saying: "We are convinced Cuba has made progress on the protection of its turtle population," he said. But German officials said they would not go along with that view.
Moves in Nairobi to allow some trade in shark products have upset ecologists too. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says trade in shark fins increased 10-fold between 1980 and 1990. Delegates say great white shark jaws command prices up to 50,000 dollars.
The E.U. defended itself meanwhile against accusations of bullying at the conference after Japan, Norway and southern African states criticised the Europeans for marshalling the numerical strength of the poor developing nations to weaken or strength certain agendas.
The accusations came in the wake of the defeat of proposals from four southern Africa countries - Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa - to allow regulated trade in ivory.
The suggestion was neutralised by an E.U.-brokered compromise that retained the current status quo, meaning no trade in ivory will be allowed till another CITES meeting. The four countries said the E.U. was mounting a "dictatorship".
"Trade in ivory is an option, it is no longer a debate," said South Africa's minister of environment, Valli Moosa.
"By banning ivory sale, we are being told that we cannot use our natural resources; that we remain perpetual beggars," said Zimbabwe's environment secretary, Charles Chipato, who accused the E.U. of being partisan.
Bail denied claims that the E.U. had bullied the four countries into withdrawing their proposals.
Japan, which joined Norway in the push at the meeting for unregulated trade in whalemeat and blubber, has also expressed misgivings over the E.U. role in determining which proposals are accepted.
Date: Wed, 19 Apr, 2000
Gray Whale Deaths Mystify Scientists
BY GLENNDA CHUI - San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer
Increasing number of grays washing up on state shores
A growing number of gray whales are turning up dead along the California coast, and scientists are scratching their heads: Is this a sign that the whales are in trouble? Or, oddly enough, a sign of their resounding success in bouncing back from the verge of extinction?
Ten whales have been found dead around San Francisco Bay in the past two weeks alone.
One theory holds that the whales are starving -- doomed by unusually warm El Ni–o conditions in the Bering and Chukchi seas, where they go each summer to gorge and fatten up on tiny crustaceans that live in the muck of the ocean bottom.
On the other hand, there are now more gray whales making the migration along the California coast than ever before -- more, even, than in the days before hunters drove them nearly to extinction.
The creatures were removed from the endangered species list in 1994, and their population, now estimated at more than 26,000, is growing by more than 2 percent a year. As the numbers increase, at some point the whales will outstrip their natural food supply and begin to die in greater numbers; maybe, some researchers say, this is now starting to happen.
"It could be that there are a number of different things going on with these animals. It could be there's no one answer," said Susan Andres, a spokeswoman for the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.
Whatever the cause, she said Tuesday, it's clear that the number of gray whales washing up on beaches or found dead offshore has gone up sharply.
"These gray whales are a very charismatic species," Andres added. "People are very concerned, and rightfully so."
From 1990 to 1997, the number of grays stranded in California ranged from 10 to 16 a year. It jumped to 30 in 1998 and to 47 last year.
Nearly two dozen already
So far this year, 23 whales have been found dead along the California coast -- the latest Monday at Fort Baker, near the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, said Joe Cordaro, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Long Beach who coordinates the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
The whales -- mottled beasts that can weigh up to 45 tons and reach 45 feet in length -- are a conservation success story and a popular attraction. People go out on boats or perch with binoculars on points of land to watch them glide by, hugging the shore.
Their migration takes them south to Baja California to breed in the winter and then north to their feeding grounds in the spring. That northward trek, with mothers guiding their newborn calves, is now at its peak.
Summer is a crucial time for these giant animals because it's the only time they get to eat. In the rich feeding grounds of the Bering Sea, they scoop up mouthfuls of bottom muck, use their fringe-like baleens to filter out small crustaceans known as amphipods, and spit out the rest.
In just five months of eating, they have to put on enough blubber to fuel their 4,300-mile journey back to Mexico, an arduous winter of mating and giving birth in shallow, warm lagoons, and the trip back north. By one estimate, the average whale eats its way through 57 acres of ocean bottom during the feeding season and puts on 11,000 pounds, increasing its body weight 16 percent to 30 percent.
At that rate, "you can reach a limit where it's hard to make your daily ration because of competition from other whales," said David Casper, a veterinarian at the University of California-Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory.
Burney Le Boeuf, a marine biologist at UC-Santa Cruz, said more whales were found dead along the migration route last year than ever before -- more than 300.
And the pattern of deaths, he said, suggests that many had starved.
"Normally, whales that die are the young of the year, the most vulnerable," he said.
"In 1999, most were adults, and most of those were females. And those that washed up were emaciated."
He said it's too early to tell if the trend will hold.
"But the preliminary reports are that the mortality was high in the (breeding) lagoons, and it appears it will be high on the migration north again this year," Le Boeuf said.
"This is not surprising to me."
El Ni–o equation
In 1998, he said, the El Ni–o climate pattern warmed the waters of the Bering Sea, with enormous effects on wildlife.
Among the creatures that would have been affected are the amphipods, the shrimp-like crustaceans that are the gray whale's bread and butter. Although no one has been monitoring their numbers recently, Le Boeuf said, in the past they have tended to dwindle as the water warmed.
If this is the case, it could take years for the amphipods and the whales to recover, said Raymond Highsmith, a biologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. That's because the inch-long amphipods grow very slowly at the cold temperatures of the ocean bottom, and may not even reproduce until they are 4 or 5 years old.
Cordaro said, however, that only about half the whales stranded in California this year have been emaciated. "We're getting some that appear to be in good body condition," he said, "so it looks like more than one thing is going on."
He said about 700 whales are expected to die each year of natural causes. Most never come to human attention; the numbers that drift toward shore are affected by currents and storm surges, which can vary from year to year.
The Marine Mammal Center sends investigators out to examine dead whales that turn up between San Luis Obispo and Mendocino County, Andres said. If the corpse is fresh enough they perform a necropsy, the animal equivalent of an autopsy, which can take hours. Samples of tissue and blood are sent to laboratories in Sausalito, Davis or Seattle to be analyzed for contaminants and germs.
"It's like forensics," she said.
"We try to track down any clues that might tell us about the life history of that animal and what might have caused its death."
Necropsies difficult
Unfortunately, she said, most of the stranded animals have been too decomposed for laboratory testing, and researchers have found no pattern among the deaths. A lot of animals last year were unusually skinny; a few had heavy loads of parasites, and one had encephalitis and pneumonia.
Cordaro said that for now, at least, the gray whale population appears to be healthy and growing. And as it gets bigger, more gray whales invariably will wander into San Francisco Bay, get lost and die.
"People should expect to see dead whales at this time of year," Cordaro said.
"It's really a natural thing -- just nature sort of thinning its numbers out."
Contact Glennda Chui at: gchui@sjmercury.com
Date: Thu, 20 Apr, 2000
Better Protection for Australian Dugong
Canberra, -- Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill says Australia's continuing efforts to protect dugong have been further assisted by an international ban on commercial trade in the species.
The 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has voted in favour of an Australian proposal to include Australia's population of Dugong on Appendix I of CITES.
Senator Hill welcomed the decision, saying it would outlaw commercial trade in Dugong species.
"Until now, all Dugongs other than Australia's population have been listed on Appendix I and there have been reports that illegal trade in Dugong meat has occurred through claiming that the products originated from Australia," Senator Hill said.
"Thanks to the acceptance of the Australian proposal this will no longer be possible and I particularly thank the other Dugong range states for their support."
"Australia provides one of the last strongholds for the Dugong and they are recognised as one of the values for which the Great Barrier Reef was World Heritage listed."
"Australia therefore has an increased responsibility to protect them. While Australia has domestic legislation in place to prevent any trade in Dugong, our CITES proposal is an extension of that obligation, and one which has now been accepted by the international community."
"This move complements other Federal Government initiatives to protect Dugongs, including the introduction of the world's first Dugong Protection Areas."
"A system of Dugong sanctuaries along the Queensland coast was established in 1998 to restrict fishing practices in areas where the Dugong feed on seagrasses. Other threats to dugong are being addressed through research on sea grasses and consultation with indigenous communities on traditional hunting."
Senator Hill went on to say there would be increased Commonwealth protection for Dugong habitat under the new Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which comes into force in July this year.
Contacts: Rod Bruem (Senator Hill) (02) 6277 7640 or 0419 258 364
Tony Bigwood (Environment Australia) (02) 6274 2730
Date: Thu, 20 Apr, 2000
Third Gray Whale Washes up on B.C. Coast
VANCOUVER, B.C. (AP) -- A third gray whale has washed up dead in the Strait of Georgia, bringing to at least seven the number found between Seattle and Vancouver in the past month.
Jean McLean, a retired school teacher who lives on Saturna Island, said the 33-foot carcass was wedged in the rocks less than 330 feet from her living room window.
Peter Ross, a scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences near Victoria, left for the island Tuesday to take tissue samples from the whale.
Ross said lower ocean productivity, possibly from large-scale changes in ocean conditions in the Bering Sea, might have reduced the whales' food sources.
[Some] Scientists also say the growing gray whale population may have exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment. In addition, tissue samples from other dead whales have revealed concentrations of toxic substances, including dioxins, PCBs and heavy metals, in the fat and nervous systems.
A dead gray whale was found off White Rock last week and another was spotted floating nearby. Four gray whales have been found dead farther south in Puget Sound and one has been reported off the coast of Oregon.
Ed Lochbaum, regional marine mammal manager at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, said the numbers don't yet warrant concern.
Healthy whales normally live to 60 years of age, but every year as many as 2,000 die from disease, accidents, predation or starvation.
Because most deaths occur at sea, "we probably only see about 10 percent of the actual mortalities," Lochbaum said.
This is the peak of the annual migration of about 26,000 gray whales from their winter breeding grounds near Mexico to the nutrient-rich waters of the Bering Sea.
© 2000 The Associated Press.
Date: Fri, 21 Apr, 2000
Japan, New Zealand Clash on Whaling, Tuna, Fuel
Tokyo, [Reuters] - Japan and New Zealand sparred over their opposing stances on the touchy topics of whaling, tuna fishing and nuclear fuel shipments at talks on Thursday ahead of a weekend summit of Japanese and Pacific island nations.
But Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and his New Zealand counterpart Phil Goff agreed not to allow the environmental spats to dent otherwise sound two-way ties, Kyodo news agency quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.
"We should be able to resolve disputes through dialogue, given our good relations," Kono was quoted as saying.
Wellington's centre-left government has stepped up pressure on Japan to abandon whaling in the Southern Ocean, by throwing its weight behind a new Greenpeace anti-whaling petition and rejecting Tokyo's position it is whaling for scientific purposes.
Japan, the world's largest consumer of whale meat, gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium that took effect in 1986 but has engaged in what it calls whaling for "scientific research" since 1987.
Tokyo vowed this week not to abandon its bid to overturn the global ban, even though delegates of 150 nations to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Nairobi last week rejected proposals by Japan and Norway to allow trade in specific populations of grey and minke whales.
Goff also reiterated New Zealand's criticism of Japan's "experimental" fishing of southern bluefin tuna and urged it to exclude the South Pacific from the route for nuclear fuel shipments between Japan and Europe, Kyodo said.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will meet leaders of the 16-nation South Pacific Forum in the scenic coastal resort city of Miyazaki in southwestern Japan on Saturday.
Date: Fri, 21 Apr, 2000
NZ PM Meets Japanese, puts Views on Whaling
Wellington, [NZPA] - New Zealand "hasn't hesitated" to discuss its differences with Japan, Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff says.
Mr Goff, in Japan for a series of meetings including a Pacific leaders gathering, today met with Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono in Tokyo.
"The theme of the meeting was to set our relationship in context, which is generally a very positive and constructive relationship," Mr Goff told NZPA.
It's vitally important to New Zealand, Japan being our second biggest market with $6 billion two-way trade. They are our second most important tourist market, and a vital market for international students.
"At the same time we haven't hesitated to discuss the areas where we have differences. We have tried to discuss those differences within the contest of a close and strong relationship between the two countries."
Whaling, blue fin tuna fishing -- New Zealand is currently taking Japan to arbitration over the fishery -- and transportation of nuclear waste through the South Pacific were three main areas of concern raised in the meeting, Mr Goff said.
Japan-New Zealand relations soured after Prime Minister Helen Clark and Japanese Ministers traded comments over whaling earlier this year.
"I think essentially we agreed to disagree," Mr Goff said.
"We will continue to put our position forward, and we will continue to try and persuade the Japanese to move closer to our position on each of those three issues, but they're not issues which will be immediately resolvable between the two countries."
New Zealand had the support of most Pacific nations in its views on those issues, Mr Goff said. The meeting was not "heavily confrontational," but New Zealand's viewpoint had been made very clearly and very firmly, he said.
The Pacific leaders meeting (known as Palm 2000) will be held in the southern city of Miyazaki and will be attended by Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori. It will deal with issues such as the environment, climate change, fisheries, multilateral free trade, crime and money laundering.
"We'll also be talking about the overseas development assistance that Japan gives. Japan is the major aid giver in the Pacific," Mr Goff said.
"That aid is critically important. The Japanese, for example, will probably give several hundred million dollars worth of aid to East Timor."
On the way home, Mr Goff will visit Indonesia to hold discussions, including talks on resettling East Timorese refugees currently in West Timor, and New Zealand's concerns about the refugee camps.
Date: Fri, 21 Apr, 2000
Protester Injured as Makah continue Whale Hunt
NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -- Coast Guard officials today defended the crew of a 21-foot inflatable patrol boat that ran over a jet skier who was trying to disrupt a whale hunt by the Makah tribe.
Erin Abbott, 23, an anti-whaling protester from Seattle, was listed as stable at a Port Angeles hospital with a shoulder injury after the collision Thursday.
"They ran over me," she said from the hospital.
"I wasn't expecting to get run over by a boat. I expected to try and protect a whale that's trying to migrate to its summer resting spot."
Coast Guard Adm. Paul Blayney said on ABC's "Good Morning America" today that the crew couldn't avoid
hitting Abbott.
"We had a dynamic, dangerous situation," he said.
"Our people moved quickly, and unfortunately a boat can't stop on a dime. ... We regret that there were injuries, but it was moving fast. The protesters triggered that situation."
The hunt was unsuccessful, but tribal members said they would not be deterred by protesters, who are
required to stay 500 yards from the whalers and their carved wooden canoe.
"We hope she's OK, but it's unfortunate that she would violate the exclusionary zone" around the canoe,
said Makah Whaling Commission Chairman Keith Johnson.
"She'll have to accept the consequences of her actions."
Television video showed Abbott swooping in on her watercraft Thursday as the canoe closed in on a gray whale. The Makah had just thrown a harpoon, which did not stick in the whale.
As the Makah attempted to maneuver for another shot, Abbott rushed by the canoe, spraying those
aboard with her wake. As the watercraft turned, it was overtaken by the Coast Guard boat.
The two collided, and both the watercraft and Abbott appeared to go under the Coast Guard boat. Abbott
surfaced a moment later about 20 feet from her watercraft.
"I can't believe she wasn't killed," said Julie Woodyer of World Whale Police.
"This aggressive behavior by the Coast Guard is unprecedented -- this is our worst nightmare come true."
Coast Guard officials said a second protester, Erin O'Connell, was arrested Thursday morning and a second personal watercraft was confiscated. Protesters said they would resort to using larger boats to interfere with the hunt.
Tribal leaders say the seasonal hunt, a centuries-old tradition that resumed in the fall of 1998 after a 70-year hiatus, is vital to preserving the identity of the tribe at the tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Anti-whaling activists fear it could open the door to a worldwide renewal of commercial whaling.
Date: Sat, 22 Apr, 2000
Foundation to Protect Ireland's Dolphins from Tourists
By Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent - The Irish Times
Ireland's only resident group of dolphins is to be protected by a foundation which aims to control the development of eco-tourism in the Shannon estuary.
The Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation has been established by Shannon Development, with support from Dśchas, the Marine Institute, Kilrush Urban District Council, Clare County Council and local community interests.
A recent Marine Institute study estimates that there are 113 dolphins in the estuary, ranging from singletons to groups of 32.
These bottlenose dolphins are the only resident group in Ireland, and one of only six groups in Europe, according to the recent study by Dr Emer Rogan, Simon Ingram, Brian Holmes and Conor O'Flanagan.
It noted that two operators made approximately 200 dolphin-watching trips annually. A third operation is to be set up in Kilrush this season.
The foundation aims to control this development and protect Ireland's only designated marine Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
"The Shannon estuary is probably the best place in Europe to observe wild dolphins," said Dr Simon Berrow, the new manager of the foundation.
Dolphin-watching operators within the SAC must seek permission from the Minister for Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, and must respect codes of conduct, provide monitoring data and demonstrate competence in environmental interpretation.
However, a recent workshop hosted by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) questioned the role of SACs in protecting small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises).
It said that a sighting scheme, combined with tracking studies, would be the most effective way of identifying key habitats.
The workshop also welcomed an initiative by fishermen in Co Kerry to close some areas to commercial fishing.
email: lsiggins@irish-times.ie
Date: Sat, 22 Apr, 2000
Makah Crew takes break from Whales
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Staff and News Services
Protesters say they will continue to hamper hunt
NEAH BAY -- A day after a collision between a Coast Guard boat and an anti-whaling personal watercraft trying to disrupt a Makah tribal canoe, the Makah crew took a day off to rest.
The tribal members say they'll continue to exercise their treaty right to hunt gray whales. The Coast Guard says it will keep enforcing a 500-yard exclusion zone around the hand-carved whaling canoe and motorized support boat. And the protesters say they'll keep doing all they can to hamper the hunt.
When the whaling crew will take to the water again is largely up to the instincts of the whaling captain. Tribal members said it is unlikely to be this weekend, however. The Makah crew has been subpoenaed to appear as witnesses in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Monday for a hearing into charges filed against one of three protesters arrested this week.
The Makah, the Coast Guard and the whaling protesters all say they did nothing wrong following Thursday's collision that left protester Erin Abbott, 24, with a broken shoulder.
Abbott, of Tampa Bay, Fla., has been a resident of Seattle for the past year. She remained in satisfactory condition at Olympic Municipal Hospital in Port Angeles yesterday.
Coast Guard Adm. Paul Blayney defended the Coast Guard crew. He said they could not avoid hitting Abbott, who raced into the restricted area to buzz the whaling canoe after it missed a gray whale with a harpoon.
"We had a dynamic, dangerous situation," Blayney said.
"Our people moved quickly, and unfortunately a boat can't stop on a dime. . . . We regret that there were injuries, but it was moving fast. The protesters triggered that situation."
Abbott came within six inches of hitting the canoe, Makah crew members said. She was hit by a 21-foot motorized Coast Guard inflatable boat in a maneuver intended to prevent her from making a second pass.
"They ran over me," Abbott said from her hospital room.
"I wasn't expecting to get run over by a boat. I expected to try and protect a whale that's trying to migrate to its summer resting spot."
The Makah harpoonist had just missed the whale as the tribe paddled its canoe near Point of Arches, south of Cape Flattery, said Arnie Hunter, Makah Whaling Commission chairman, who was on a support boat near the canoe.
For the second year since resuming hunting after a 70-year hiatus, the tribe is being pitted against protesters supporting animal rights.
Abbott said she just wants "to be a voice for the animals. Nothing gives us the right to take their lives just because they can't communicate in words like you and I do."
While whaling protest groups spent a good part of the day threatening to sue the Coast Guard for excessive force, tribal council Chairman Ben Johnson said the tribe is considering whether to sue protesters for violating their civil rights and treaty rights.
Outside Alaskan native people, the Makah are the only tribe in the United States to retain rights to hunt gray whales under an 1855 treaty in which they surrendered much of their lands in the remote northwest corner of the state.
Abbott was the second person hurt in confrontations with the Coast Guard, and one of three arrested in waterborne protests, during the first week of whaling this spring. A guard was posted outside her hospital room.
Also arrested Thursday was Erin O'Connell, who operated a second personal watercraft which, like Abbott's, was seized by the Coast Guard.
Bill Moss of Olympia, a member of a local group called World Whale Police, was taken into custody Monday and the 23-foot Reinell boat he was operating was seized after it headed for the canoe and was bumped by a Coast Guard vessel in a maneuver called "shouldering."
A woman aboard Moss' boat, Julie Woodyer of Toronto, a member of World Wildlife Police, complained of back pain from a fall and was checked by a doctor and released.
Those convicted of violating the exclusion zone face a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Jonathan Paul, leader of Ocean Defense International, said the one-person watercraft would be replaced and the group would consider disrupting the hunt during the next six to eight weeks.
© 1998-2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Date: Mon, 24 Apr, 2000
Ireland Not off Hook on Whaling, says Group
By Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent - The Irish Times
Ireland is "not off the hook" on its policy on whale-hunting, following last week's UN decision to maintain a ban on trade in whale meat and marine turtles, according to a British environmental organisation.
The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed last week to retain the global ban on trade in whales and marine turtles.
The British organisation, Campaign Whale, said Ireland's attendance at the CITES conference would "send out the wrong message" as this Government was already "hopelessly compromised" on whaling.
Ireland currently holds the chair of the International Whaling Commission, and has proposed that the world's oceans be declared a global sanctuary for whales outside 200-mile limits.
Within 200 miles, coastal whaling should be permitted among communities with a tradition in the fishery, according to the proposal. Environmentalists have said the plan would spell disaster for whale conservation efforts.
Mr Andy Ottaway of Campaign Whale said that last week's decision at CITES was welcome, but the issue would not go away and would reappear at the International Whaling Commission's next meeting.
"The whalers' plans to resume the cruel trade in whale meat have been thwarted this time, but for as long as the Irish Government's compromise on whaling is on the table, the threat remains that a political deal will be struck and this vile trade will return," he said.
"Our message to the Irish Government is simple: back the whales, not the whalers."
Date: Mon, 24 Apr, 2000
In Mexico, an Economic Sacrifice for Whales
By James F. Smith - The Los Angeles Times
MEXICO CITY, With his family and a couple of friends, President Ernesto Zedillo helicoptered to San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California one weekend and joined other eco-tourists in small skiffs out on the water.
Against a backdrop of dunes and desert mountains, several playful gray whales surfaced and approached the president's boat, friends recall. Zedillo's group camped that night on the shore of the lagoon, the last undisturbed mating and calving sanctuary for the gray whale.
A week later, on March 2, Zedillo announced that he was canceling a proposal to build the world's largest salt production complex on the edge of the lagoon to keep the nature reserve pristine for future generations.
Zedillo, a Yale-trained economist, has worked obsessively to increase exports and investment since he took office in 1994. Yet, for reasons that went far beyond his weekend lagoon visit, Zedillo chose to sacrifice a $180 million investment that would have created 200 new jobs and earned $85 million in export revenues each year.
Now, environmental groups are studying the lessons of one of the hardest-fought environmental battles in recent years, which resulted in a landmark choice by a poor country to save a unique wilderness, even at the expense of industrial growth.
In the aftermath of the struggle, key players agree that the anti-saltworks campaign broke new ground in environmental activism, developing a multilayered sophistication that is sure to be mirrored in future eco-confrontations.
"It's a case study in how to do a grass-roots campaign in the era of globalization, and the result is a tremendous victory for environmentalists around the world," said Joel Reynolds, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles who helped direct the campaign.
"What happened here was that the environmental coalition drew a line in the sand around San Ignacio Lagoon, and we held that line."
It would be an overstatement to suggest that Zedillo made his decision either because of the protest campaign or because of his visit to the lagoon that February weekend. A scuba-diving fanatic, the 48-year-old president has watched whales there and knows the Baja region well. And Mexico followed an unprecedented public five-year process to get to the final ruling.
In announcing his decision Zedillo angrily attacked what he called extremist environmental groups "who have used this project to seek notoriety and even, I have to say it, to profit financially and politically."
He also insisted that the project would not have harmed the whales or other wildlife in the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve on the Pacific Coast of the Baja California peninsula. The reason behind his decision, Zedillo said, was that a 75,000-acre saltworks would change the landscape "in a place unique in the world both for the species that inhabit it and for its natural beauty, which is also a value we should preserve."
Date: Tue, 25 Apr, 2000
Judge Bars Whaling Protester From Waves
By Steve Waterstrat
TACOMA, Wash. (APBnews.com) -- A federal judge has ordered a Seattle woman who collided with a Coast Guard boat last week to stay away from personal watercraft and the Makah Indian Reservation, where she was protesting tribal hunting of gray whales.
Erin Abbott, 24, was arrested under a federal charge of violating Coast Guard rules of engagement during the protest. She suffered a broken shoulder and cracked ribs Thursday when a Coast Guard boat ran her over after she had circled her personal watercraft around a tribal canoe engaged in a whale hunt.
She was airlifted to Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles after the incident and held in custody until Monday's hearing.
Judge Kelley Arnold ordered Abbott to obey the Coast Guard's command to keep at least 500 yards away from the whaling canoes and not to operate personal watercraft for any protests.
If convicted, she faces a penalty of up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She will enter her plea at a May 5 preliminary hearing. In the meantime, she is free without bail.
Whaling resumes
The Makah Indian tribe resumed its whaling practice for the first time in 70 years last year. A federal ruling cleared the way for the hunting of gray whales returning to summer feeding grounds in Alaska. Animal rights activists protested last year's hunt and returned this year for another confrontation in the waters of Puget Sound, just off the Olympic Peninsula. The Coast Guard deployed boats to enforce the 500-foot rule.
Last year, a Makah hunting party harpooned a 30-foot-long 3-year-old female whale after weeks of protests. It was the tribe's first whale kill in 70 years.
Keith Johnson, president of the Makah Whaling Commission, released a statement saying that five families trained for this year's hunt. Only one permit has been granted so far, but the season runs through June.
"All we ask is that people obey the Coast Guard and obey the law," he said.
"We are just following our tradition."
No whale has been killed so far in this year's hunt. The boats have stayed on shore for the last two days because of wind and choppy waters.
Steve Waterstrat is an APBnews.com correspondent in Seattle.
Date: Sat, 29 Apr, 2000
Legality of Makah Whale Hunt a Gray Area
By Lucy Chubb - ENN News
For the second successive year, members of the Makah Indian Nation this month embarked on a hunt for gray whales off the coast of Washington. And for the second year in a row, the legality of the hunt is causing heated debate and radical action.
The Makah maintain that their right to hunt gray whales is spelled out in a treaty with the U.S. government drawn up in the mid-19th century.
"Under the treaty made by the United States with Makahs in 1855, the United States promised to secure to the Makahs the right to engage in whaling," the Makah web site notes.
"The treaty, which was ratified by the United States Congress in 1855, is the law of the land under the U.S. Constitution and has been upheld by the federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court."
"The treaty language is crystal clear," said Brian Gorman, public affairs officer for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries.
Conservation groups fighting to stop the whaling claim the Makah are acting illegally because the tribe has not received permission from the International Whaling Commission to hunt gray whales.
"To us, the legal situation surrounding the issue of Makah whaling is very clear. It is illegal," said Paul and Helena Spong of Orcalab, a whale research station on Hanson Island in British Columbia, Canada.
"The only 'law' applicable is that of the International Whaling Commission which has been given the responsibility, by international agreement, for regulating whaling. The IWC has not approved Makah whaling."
Ocean Defense International, a group that is actively trying to halt the hunt, shares this view.
"IWC did not sanction the hunt," said ODI representative Jonathan Paul.
Based in Great Britain, the IWC is an international coalition of countries that oversee the whaling industry. When the commission was established in 1946, whaling was legal. The original purpose of the group was threefold: to conserve whale stocks, develop the whaling industry and take into account the consumers who use whale goods.
"The job of the IWC was to conserve whale stocks with a view to making the largest possible catch," said Martin Harvey of the organization.
"But the emphasis has moved from catching whales to conserving them."
The method by which the IWC conserves whale stocks is by establishing quotas. "IWC is only permitted to set total catch limits," said Harvey. Countries with quotas are responsible for any legal situations that might arise from their whaling, he said.
The IWC had long protected the gray whale, according to Harvey, after overhunting had reduced its numbers drastically to less than 2,000 animals. Russia's Chukotka tribe, which lives on the Siberian coast, was allowed to hunt whales and assigned a quota through the Russian Federation.
In the past several decades, gray whale numbers have recovered to an estimated 21,000 individuals. The animal was removed from the U.S. endangered species list in 1994.
In 1997, the United States on behalf of the Makah and the Russian Federation on behalf of the Chukotka proposed a catch limit that, between the two countries, would not exceed 140 whales per year for the years 1998 through 2002, and no more than a total 540 during that period.
The whales that the two tribes were to hunt come from the same migration corridor in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.
"At our annual meeting in 1997," said Ray Gambell, secretary of the IWC, "after extensive discussion, the IWC granted the catch of gray whales requested."
The United States and the Russian Federation agreed that the Makah could have 20 whales out of the five-year limit, said Gorman, with a catch of no more than five whales per year over that period.
The schedule for the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling states that the taking of gray whales is permitted "when the meat and products are to be used exclusively for local consumption by the aborigines whose traditional aboriginal subsistence and cultural needs have been recognised." The wording has since been updated but the essence of the decree remains the same.
The issue now is whether this language constitutes "approval" for the Makah to take gray whales.
"This decision implicitly recognized that the Makah Indian Tribe would want to utilize part of this quota," said Gambell,
"since the IWC received the needs statement and supporting arguments from the government of the USA on its behalf. However, you will not find anywhere a formal statement from the IWC that the Makah whale hunt is legal, since it has not made such a determination."
Gorman asserts that the IWC's inaction to change catch limits after last year's gray whale kill by the Makah constitutes consent for the take of gray whales.
"There is thus a de facto acceptance of this hunt as falling within the IWC's requirements for aboriginal subsistence whaling," he said,
"but with a degree of hesitation by some of our members as reflected in the discussions which took place in setting the original catch limits. It was precisely for that reason that the recognition of the aboriginal subsistence character of the hunt was left deliberately vague, with the onus ultimately falling on the government of the U.S.A."
Spong does not buy this argument.
"No matter how much some maintain that the IWC gave ... permission by stating that it's up to the parties to settle issues that arise over quotas, the fact remains the IWC did not approve a quota for the Makah."
Spong's position is shared by other environmentalists and conservation organizations, many of which signed a document supporting this opinion at the 1999 IWC meeting in Grenada.
The paper says, "We the undersigned observers at the 51st meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Grenada wish to point out that the IWC has not formally approved the killing of gray whales by the Makah tribe of Washington State, U.S.A."
Groups that support the document include the International Wildlife Coalition, Humane Society International, Cousteau Society and the Canadian Marine Environment Protection Society.
Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network - All Rights Reserved
Date: Thu, 04 May, 2000
Australia Appeals to Japan not to Extend Whale Kill
Canberra, [Reuters] - Australia said on Thursday it would protest against reported Japanese plans to extend its lethal whale research programme.
Environment Minister Robert Hill said he was stunned by media reports from Tokyo suggesting Japan wanted to continue its existing minke whale kill and extend it to two more species, Bryde's and sperm whales, in the North Pacific.
"There is no scientific justification for whales to be killed in order for them to be studied," Hill said in a statement.
Hill said Australia would make urgent diplomatic representations to the Japanese government expressing its opposition to this proposal and seeking an end to all lethal scientific whaling.
He said Australia would promote increased protection for whales at the 52nd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Adelaide, South Australia, between July 3-6.
Japan, the world's largest consumer of whale meat, gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium that took effect in 1986.
It has been carrying out what it calls "scientific research" whaling since 1987, catching about 500 minke whales a year in the Antarctic Ocean and the North Pacific.
Tokyo said last month it would not abandon its bid to overturn the global ban, even though delegates from 150 nations at the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species rejected proposals by Japan and Norway to allow trade in specific populations of grey and minke whales.
Date: Fri, 05 May, 2000
British whale Society Condemns Japan Whale Hunt
London, [Reuters] - Britain's Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society on Thursday criticised Japan over reports it was planning to extend its "scientific" whale hunts to include two new species.
Reports from Tokyo indicate Japan will continue its existing minke whale kill and add two species -- the Bryde and Sperm whales -- to its so-called "whale research programme".
"Scientific whaling provides meat to the Japanese markets and is no more than a thin disguise for a commercial hunt," society spokeswoman Sue Fisher said.
"Whaling is inherently cruel and unsustainable and the countries of the world should now call on Japan and Norway to desist," she said.
Japan's new proposal was lodged two weeks ago with the International Whaling Commission in Cambridge by Japan's whaling commissioner, Minoru Morimoto.
Japan, the world's largest consumer of whale meat, stopped commercial whaling in 1986 in compliance with an international moratorium. But it has continued what it calls ``scientific research'' whaling, catching about 500 minke whales annually.
Date: Wed, 10 May, 2000
Whale carcasses escape Boundary Bay burial site
by Nicole Bailey - Vancouver Sun
All is not quiet at the unofficial burial ground for dead whales in Boundary Bay.
Like restless ghosts, two grey whales that were supposed to be decomposing there, recently slipped their tethers.
One, with a rope still tied around its tail, washed up on White Rock Beach last weekend. Another was spotted offshore about 200 metres from the foot of 96th Street in Delta earlier this week.
Compounding the problem were extremely low tides last weekend that allowed people to reach the burial site and collect bones from specimens dumped last year.
It all underscores a little-known but vexing problem for Fisheries and Oceans Canada: how to dispose of whale carcasses.
Getting rid of a dead whale is a tough financial and logistical problem, says Ed Lochbaum, marine mammal coordinator for the department. While the number of deaths tends to be cyclical, in the past two years, the department has had to dispose of six of the huge mammals.
Fears have been raised that the animals could pose a risk to human health.
Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the animal health branch of the ministry of food and agriculture, says bacteria are associated with the decomposition of tissues, and it is not a good idea for people to be in direct contact with any dead animals.
He said he doesn't think there is any immediate risk, but "ideally, this burial site should be situated remote from human access and in an area where the currents and water outflow is not distributed to habitated areas."
Ironically, the site, located offshore about two kilometres from the foot of 96th Street, was chosen because it was believed to be far enough away from urban environments to avoid upsetting residents.
Lochbaum says the current hypothesis is that as the whale population has soared above 25,000, whales have returned to an historic migration route along the Inside Passage en route to their summer home in the Bering Sea. The dead whales are believed to reflect a natural mortality and starvation rate.
Before the recent influx, the last whale to wash ashore in the Lower Mainland arrived in April of 1992, on Second Beach in Stanley Park.
The huge grey whale, measuring 13 metres (43 feet) from head to tail, was towed out to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, weighed down with 180-kilogram train wheels and sunk. Lochbaum said the job took seven to 10 days and was extremely expensive.
Even worse was what happened after the death of Hyak, a Vancouver Aquarium killer whale, in March of 1991. After an autopsy on the 51ع2-tonne whale (about the same weight as a city transit bus), Hyak was wrapped in canvas, along with pieces of skull, brain matter, and vital organs that were removed during the autopsy.
The bundle was towed up Georgia Strait to Ballinas Basin, where the carcass was pushed into 200 fathoms of water. Days later, pieces of Hyak floated free and washed ashore north of Sechelt.
Even this is not the worst of disposal methods that have been tried in the past. In November of 1970, the Oregon highways division tried to blow up an eight-ton beached sperm whale that washed onto the shore of Florence, Ore. with a half a ton of dynamite.
But the blasting did not quite go as planned. Instead of blowing the debris into the ocean, where it would be eaten by fish and birds, the explosion blew it into the crowd. No one was hurt, but a car was crushed by a piece of flying blubber.
Although Lochbaum says the site hasn't been intentionally kept secret, and questions from the public about the whales are answered when they they come in, there was no public consultation before the burial site was decided on.
Delta environmental control officer Rob Rithaler said he was not aware of the underwater burial site in Boundary Bay and no one from Delta is working with fisheries officials.
He said Delta was under the impression that fisheries officials were simply taking samples of the dead whales and then moving them out to deeper waters. Similarly, Bill Rogers, chief public health inspector for the South Fraser Health Region, was unaware that the site existed.
Lochbaum says the department intends to resecure both of the drifting whales Friday, when a hovercraft is available and the tides are appropriate.
He said the White Rock whale may have drifted loose because it was secured on April 29 by a Coast Guard auxiliary vessel crewed by volunteers, and may not have been properly secured.
The second drifting whale is believed to have been placed at the site by the Coast Guard on April 23. But instead of being tied to a manufactured concrete block with an eyehole screw, it was tied to a 136-kilogram chunk of concrete curbing.
Still at the burial ground is a dead killer whale placed there about a month and a half ago, and the bones of three whales placed there last year. The decomposition process generally takes about six months.
Date: Sat, 13 May, 2000
Japan Suspected of Selling Banned Whale Meat
Tokyo, AFP - Genetic scientists from New Zealand have discovered that meat from the grey whale, an internationally protected species, was sold in Japanese shops last year, Kyodo News reported today.
The researchers at the University of Auckland have demanded that Japan's state Fisheries Agency and its affiliate, the Institute of Cetacean Research, locate where the meat came from, said Kyodo.
The hunting of grey whales is banned under a 1937 international whaling agreement.
An official from the Fisheries Agency has denied the allegations, Kyodo said.
He was quoted as saying that the genetic analysis conducted by the researchers was questionable and that the researchers were refusing to provide a meat sample for verification.
The meat was sold last August and October as minke whale meat, when in reality it was from the grey whale, at a number of shops in the Pacific coast towns of Taiji and Nachikatsuura, some 400km south-west of Tokyo, said Kyodo quoting a report compiled by the researchers.
Japan is allowed to sell grey whale meat only in circumstances where a whale has beached itself or has been accidentally captured in a fishing net.
However, the report said that no grey whale had been captured near Wakayama prefecture where the towns are located.
A whaling expert said the meat was probably from a grey whale that had been found dead floating in the Sea of Japan near Suttsu in Hokkaido, about 1000km north-east of Wakayama, in May 1996.
Date: Fri, 19 May, 2000
Keiko Faces Threat from Dynamite Blasting in Bay
By Katy Muldoon of The Oregonian staff
Harbor construction plans include detonations less than 1,000 yards from where the whale swims
A harbor construction project in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, where Keiko lives in a netted bay, includes plans to detonate underwater dynamite charges less than 1,000 yards from where the whale swims. Keepers worry that such blasts could harm Keiko's hearing and threaten the 4-year effort to rehabilitate and successfully reintroduce him to the wild.
Although they have negotiated delays in the construction -- at a cost of more than $80,000, which puts the project off through next Friday -- Keiko's crew is scrambling to find a solution that will take the whale star of the popular 1993 movie "Free Willy" out of harm's way.
They have considered lifting Keiko from the water with a sling and crane during blasting; dragging his floating pen out to sea with him in it; installing a "bubble wall" to mask some of the blasting noise; and what appears to be the most likely option: taking the whale for so-called walks at sea -- keepers have trained him to follow a boat -- during times of blasting and the pile driving that will follow.
Hearing vital to survival Killer whales have acute hearing; marine mammals depend on sound for communication and for sensing their environment. Should Keiko's hearing be damaged by the blasts and construction noise, it could hurt his chances of ever surviving at sea.
"We can't afford to damage his hearing," Jeff Foster said Thursday in a telephone interview from Iceland.
"It's an unacceptable risk as far as we're concerned."
Foster is director of operations and research for Ocean Futures, the California-based environmental organization that cares for Keiko.
He said news of the blasting and construction came as a surprise to the whale crew when it learned of it in early April. Ocean Futures employees at first thought they could persuade the harbormaster to delay the work until autumn. The whale crew has been aiming, if work progresses on schedule, to give Keiko the chance to swim free by late summer.
"It didn't look like a crisis at the very beginning," said Charles Vinick, Ocean Futures executive director.
"But it became clear that there were some real mitigating circumstances that would prevent the harbor from granting the delays. ... They had construction people and equipment at the site already. ... They decided they couldn't wait."
Harbor home to fishing fleet
The 3-mile-wide, 5-mile-long island where Keiko lives is home to one of Iceland's most productive fishing fleets; the majority of the island's 5,000 residents work in the fish industry. Near the docks, the air smells fishy year-round. During hot herring and capelin runs, trawlers and fish-processing vessels stream constantly past Keiko's netted-off bay as they come and go from the picturesque harbor.
The construction project will expand the harbor and docking space so vessels can offload their catch directly into the fish-rendering plants rather than having to truck the catch to processing plants.
The work is expected to involve at least one series of dynamite blasts, lasting a little longer than one minute, followed by two to three weeks of noisy pile driving to install piers.
Vinick said Icelandic authorities from the Ministry of the Environment and the Animal Welfare Board helped with Ocean Futures' push to delay the blasting and construction. But the dynamite has already been installed in the harbor bedrock and is ready for detonation. The harbor will lose financially if construction work does not proceed.
"It doesn't appear we'll get much more cooperation," Vinick said.
Activists issue plea
However, pressure is on its way from conservation and animal rights activists, many of whom learned of the Keiko dilemma Wednesday at a meeting in Washington, D.C., when a State Department spokesman mentioned it. By Thursday morning, the International Wildlife Coalition, based in Massachusetts, issued a plea, urging activists around the world to write to Iceland's minister of fisheries and push for a solution that would be in Keiko's best interests.
"I was astounded that such a famous whale would face such a problem without the benefit of world scrutiny," said Daniel Morast, president of the International Wildlife Coalition.
Meanwhile, in Klettsvik, the glacier-blue bay where Keiko has lived since moving to Iceland from Oregon in September 1998, his training proceeds with more urgency than ever.
Keiko gets about 20 percent of his diet now from live, rather than frozen, fish. And he has easily learned to follow the crew's boat, putting in up to 11 miles at 5 to 15 knots during daily training sessions. Ocean Futures is rushing to secure permits from the Icelandic government that would allow keepers to take the whale for such excursions at sea when dynamite blasting commences.
A U.S. scientist with the National Marine Fisheries Service is in Iceland this week, working to perfect a privately financed radio tracking device that keepers will attach near Keiko's dorsal fin with screws resembling surgical screws used on humans. When it's ready, attached, and the permits are in, Keiko, captured in 1979 at about age 2, might get a look at the vast Atlantic -- and at others of his own species -- for the first time in 20 years. Killer whales have been spotted daily this week near Vestmannaeyjar, sometimes in groups of 25 to 30 animals.
You can reach Katy Muldoon at 503-221-8526 or by e-mail at katymuldoon@news.oregonian.com
Copyright 2000 Oregon Live. All rights reserved.
Date: Fri, 19 May, 2000
Statement by Ocean Futures Society on Keiko
Statement by Ocean Futures Society in Light of Planned Demolition and Construction Work Near Klettsvik Bay, Iceland
Santa Barbara, CA -- A number of rumors have emerged in recent days regarding planned harbor construction work near Klettsvik Bay, Iceland and its potential effect on Keiko, who currently resides in the bay. Following are the facts of the situation.
On April 6th 2000, Ocean Futures Society learned that construction of a pier would occur in Vestmannaeyjar Harbor as soon as April 15. The construction would involve blasting and pile driving at a distance less than half a mile from Keiko's bay enclosure. At this distance, the shock waves and low-frequency vibrations from the construction work could, in Ocean Futures Society's judgment, pose a risk of physical harm to Keiko.
Upon discovering the construction plans, Ocean Futures Society entered into immediate negotiations with local officials to secure a delay in the harbor improvements work. Officials at Vestmannaeyjar did agree to a short-term delay, but indicated that work would need to go forward as early as May 25. Ocean Futures Society is also actively engaged in discussion with the Icelandic and U.S. Governments on the best strategy for safeguarding Keiko's well-being as construction and blasting work gets underway.
Ocean Futures Society has been actively engaged in Keiko's rehabilitation and preparation for reintroduction to the wild since his relocation to Iceland in September, 1998. This process has gone extremely well, and Keiko is, in the judgment of his trainers and caretakers, ready to take further steps toward reintroduction. Keiko is eating up to 20% live fish, responds without fail to a recall signal, and has followed a boat on command for up to 11 nautical miles. His health is excellent.
Ocean Futures Society is now assessing all possible options for protecting Keiko over the coming weeks. While no final decisions have been made, one option would be to take Keiko out of his enclosed bay on an "ocean walk"— during which he would follow a designated boat to the open sea -- a measure for which he has undergone intensive training in recent weeks. Keiko's trainers have expressed confidence that his physical stamina and willingness to follow a boat mean that the risks of such a walk are slight, and may be far outweighed by the risks to Keiko's health should he be in the harbor during blasting. "Ocean walks" have been planned from the start as a key stepping stone in the reintroduction process.
During such a walk, Keiko would be led out of the enclosed bay that has served as his home for the past 17 months and then back to his bay enclosure. The duration of the walk, should this option be chosen, would be long enough to permit the harbor authorities to complete their blasting work and pile driving.
Ocean Futures Society's only priority in Iceland remains Keiko's well-being. All actions there will be taken with this sole concern in mind. - http://www.keiko.org/
Date: Fri, 19 May, 2000
South Africa Proposes Whale Sanctuary in Walker Bay
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, (ENS) - The government of South Africa would like to establish a whale sanctuary in Walker Bay, Hermanus during the whale breeding season, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa announced today. The proposed sanctuary would be located at the southern tip of Africa.
Mohammed Valli Moosa, South Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism speaking during his budget vote in the National Assembly, Moosa said, "Walker Bay in the Southern Cape is a highly significant breeding area for whales, which come in from the southern seas. It is one of the few sites in the world that provide the opportunity to engage in shore based whale watching."
"In the recent years, owners of recreational boats and other crafts have tended to ignore regulations aimed at protecting the whales. It is therefore my intention to prohibit boats and other vessels from entering the bay during the whaling season from July to December," the minister said.
The southern right whale is the species that will benefit from the proposed sanctuary. Cousin to the northern right whale, only 300 of which still inhabit the Atlantic Ocean, the southern right whale lives in sub-Antarctic water between about 30 degrees and 55 degrees south. These whales migrate south to Antarctic waters from December through May when supplies of their favourite food, tiny shrimplike krill, are more abundant. During the months from May to December, they migrate north to mate, calve and rear their young. They appear along the South African coastline from May to December.
Southern right whales can live up to 100 years. Recently, the numbers of whales coming to Hermanus have been increasing every year, due to an international ban on commercial whale hunting imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Prior to the ban, whales were hunted for their meat, oil and bones.
Today, a lucrative whale watching business is centered on Walker Bay and the old fishing village of Hermanus. On some days more than 45 whales can be seen in the bay by people watching from shore. Whale watching has become so popular that the town has acquired the world's first "Whale Crier." During the whale season he goes around town with a board indicating recent whale sightings.
The sanctuary would be established under South Africa's Marine Living Resources Act. If the proposal becomes law, the sanctuary would be in effect from July 1 to December 15 each year.
During this time, no vessels will be allowed in the protected area without written permission including fishing boats and jetskis or even human powered craft such as kayaks.
The only exceptions will be legally permitted whale watching vessels. The sanctuary proposal is intended to bolster South Africa's efforts to increase its share of the lucrative world tourism market. Minister Moosa told the National Assembly today, "Tourism more than any other sector of the economy holds the potential to create jobs and stimulate economic growth. It is rapidly overtaking the contribution of gold mining to GDP."
"No stone is being left unturned in the quest to unlock the full potential of tourism," the minister said.
"Sustainable and responsible tourism means that as we grow tourism, so should we enhance the protection of the environment."
Comments on the proposal are invited in writing by June 19 to Chief Director: Marine and Coastal Management, Private Bag X2, Roggebaai, 8012, South Africa. Fax: +27-21-425-2920.
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000. All Rights Reserved
Date: Wed, 24 May, 2000
Japanese Plan to Kill More Whales
By Andrew Darby
TOKYO -- Japan has confirmed for the first time plans to expand its controversial "scientific whaling" program to hunt more and bigger whales.
Sperm and Bryde's whales will be targeted in the hunt, which is condemned by environment groups and anti-whaling nations such as Australia.
Japanese Government officials disclosed that the program could start within months but said they would wait for comment from scientists at the upcoming meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Adelaide.
They admitted that their decision to raise the proposal at the Adelaide meeting in July could be seen as provocative because of its location in Australia, but said that was unfortunate.
They also denied having any intention to go after other whales, such as the blue or the humpback, but claimed there were large numbers of sperm and Bryde's whales.
Since a global moratorium on whaling began, Japan has confined its whaling to the minke, the smallest and most abundant of the baleen whales. Gradually its annual catch of this species has grown to more than 500.
The Japanese officials declined to comment on the proposal's details, but Greenpeace said Japan planned to take 10 sperm whales annually and 50 Bryde's whales, a catch that would significantly boost whale meat products in Japanese fish markets.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs fisheries division director Yoshiaki Ito said under special permit whaling, IWC rules let Japan set its own quota for scientific research.
"We have no intention to resume big-scale commercial whaling any more. For example, we have no intention to catch a blue whale. The population is quite small, and a hunchback (humpback) also."
When the expansion was first reported earlier this month, Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill said he was astounded. "There is no scientific justification for whales to be killed in order to be studied," he said.
Mr Ito said it was a pity that the proposal was timed for Adelaide but that was because a five-year program in the North Pacific had ended and 2000 was the first year of a new program.
Japan is apprehensive about the Adelaide meeting, hosted by a vocal anti-whaling country. "We don't want to see unnecessary emotional discussions which may effect the bilateral relationship," said Akio Miyajima, director of the Oceania Division of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Hobart correspondent Andrew Darby is in Tokyo as a guest of the Japanese Government's visiting journalists' program.
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2000.
Date: Fri, 09 Jun, 2000
Anti-whaling Victory for Gray Whales
VICTORIA, [CBC] - A U.S. federal appeals court in San Francisco has ordered a halt to the controversial whale hunt by the Makah Tribe of Washington State. The judge ruled the environmental impact of the hunt had not been adequately considered.
That hunt resumed last spring after grey whales were removed from the endangered species list, and the tribe received permission from the U.S. government. The Makah say that included an environmental impact assessment.
The president of the tribe's whaling commission says it looks like the judge's decision was based on a technicality, which he hopes can be cleared up. Keith Johnson also says it's not clear to him whether the
court decision puts an immediate stop to the hunt. If it doesn't, the Makah will keep hunting.
"You know, until something happens," he says,
"We're still living for the opportunity for families to go out, unless there is something new that comes up from the court."
Anti-whaling activists are celebrating today's ruling. Anna Hall of the West Coast Anti-Whaling Society says it's about time the courts intervened.
The case now goes back to a court in Washington State for more proceedings, including possibly a new environmental assessment to be done by the federal government.
Date: Sat, 10 Jun, 2000
Makah Whaling Decision Reversed - but may not Stop Hunting
By Mike Barber, Sam Skolnik and Paul Shukovsky - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporters
A federal appeals court yesterday overturned a 1998 lower court decision that allowed the Makah tribe to resume whaling after a 70-year hiatus.
But while a victory for animal rights groups, the ruling does not appear to prevent the tribe from hunting whales and may in fact strengthen the Makah's position that the hunt is legal.
The 2-1 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stemmed from a 1998 lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash., and several animal rights activists against the Makah and the U.S. government. The court said the environmental impact of the tribe's whaling was not adequately considered.
The judges wrote that before the National Marine Fisheries Service can make such a pact, it must take a good-faith "hard look" at the environmental damages the agreement can cause.
Jonathan Lovvorn, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney for Metcalf and the other plaintiffs, called the ruling "a huge vindication for what our clients have been saying about the whale hunt."
Lovvorn said the decision quashes the 1996 contract between the Makah and the federal government that allows the tribe to kill whales until and unless the government conducts a complete environmental assessment of the hunt.
"Unless the tribe begins whaling without the consent of the government, they're stopped from doing it," Lovvorn said. "That's what we wanted in the first place."
Lawyers close to the battle predict that a new environmental study could take from a few months to more than a year, which could delay or prevent a fall hunt or even whaling next spring.
"It's kind of devastating because we've been trying to jump through all the hoops for years, and then this happens to us," Ben Johnson Jr., chairman of the Makah Tribal Council, said of the tribe's efforts to ensure the legality of its return to whaling for cultural purposes.
Lawyers for the Makah and the government dispute the notion that the Makah are even temporarily kept from whaling.
It is "an unsettled question," said John Arum, a lawyer for the tribe. The ruling "does not address the question of whether they can whale. There is likely to be some delay. But the tribe wasn't going to be hunting this summer anyway because the (whale) migration will end soon."
Regardless, the decision affirms the Makah treaty rights to hunt whales and acknowledges that the tribe has the permission of the International Whaling Commission. Protesters have claimed it does not.
The tribe retained the right to whale when it signed the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, surrendering most of its land on the Olympic Peninsula. Some Indian law experts say the treaty allows the Makah to whale any time they wish, regardless of the current judicial wrangling.
Reid Chambers, a former associate solicitor for the U.S. Interior Department who has three decades of Indian law experience, said the 9th Circuit ruling was aimed at the government and "didn't enjoin the Makah from doing anything.
"It sounds like the Makah can go ahead and do their whaling while the (fisheries service) is doing its environmental assessment," Chambers said.
"No executive agency has any authority to abrogate the treaty. Only Congress can."
The appellate court, in an opinion written by Judge Stephen Trott, questioned the objectivity of previous environmental assessments by the government, noting that a policy choice to allow the Makah to hunt might have "slanted" its analysis.
The judges not only called for a new environmental assessment, but for one "done under circumstances that ensure an objective evaluation free of the previous taint."
The judges, however, did not say that federal environmental protection laws take precedence over Makah treaty rights. At the most, a study would only delay the tribe's exercise of its whaling rights, they wrote.
"The Makah's 70-year hiatus in connection with whale hunting suggests that a modest delay occasioned by the need to respect (the National Environmental Protection Act's) commands will cause no harm," the judges said.
Dissenting Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, however, said the issue of treaty rights vs. environmental concerns was settled in the long process the Makah took to return to whaling.
"The federal government reconciled two policies, one favoring aboriginal Indian interests and another favoring preservation of sea mammals, by choosing to advance the Indian whale-hunting interests," Kleinfeld wrote.
The lawsuit was filed by Metcalf and several animal rights, conservation and whale watching groups, including Australians for Animals, Beach Marine Protection, the Fund for Animals and Deep Sea Charters Inc., as well as several individuals who oppose the hunt.
The defendants are the Makah tribe and U.S. government agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Services, which approved the hunt when gray whales were removed from endangered species lists in 1994.
Brian Gorman, spokesman for fisheries service office in Seattle, said the 1855 treaty remains intact.
While a question now may be pending regarding temporary whaling restrictions, Gorman said,
"The court was never asked to address the question, 'Do the Makah have the right to hunt whales?'"
The Makah resumed whaling in October 1998 after Metcalf lost his suit in the lower court. In May 1999, a whaling crew in a dugout harpooned a whale, which was killed quickly with a .50-caliber gun.
The Makah are the only tribe in the continental United States to retain whaling as a treaty right. The tribe stopped whaling in the 1920s when the mammals became scarce, but petitioned to resume it as part of their culture when Eastern Pacific gray whales rebounded from near extinction.
Two Makah families have been hunting whales this spring as the mammals make their northward migration along the Pacific coast. The migration, however, is nearing its end, and one of the two cedar dugout canoes used was damaged in recent weeks.
P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or michaelbarber@seattle-pi.com
Date: Sun, 11 Jun, 2000
Whaling ban set to end
By environment correspondent Alex Kirby
Greenpeace denounces Norway: But the hunt could soon be legal again
Fourteen years after the world banned whaling, the signs are that the moratorium will be lifted within the next year or two.
The ending of the ban, imposed in 1986, may not necessarily mean a big increase in the number of whales being killed.
But it will send shockwaves through the green movement, which sees the ending of commercial whaling as one of its crowning achievements.
And it will throw wide open the debate about sustainable use, the argument that humans can, within limits, exploit every species.
The secretary of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Dr Ray Gambell, told BBC News Online that a failure to signal the forthcoming end of the ban would mean "a real danger that the commission will lose its credibility totally".
Majority opposition
The ban on commercial whaling was agreed by the IWC in 1982, and finally implemented four years later. But two IWC members continue to kill whales - Japan for what it calls "scientific research", and Norway because it does not accept the moratorium.
Under IWC rules both are legally entitled to their catches, though most members disapprove strongly.
In 1999 Japan killed more than 500 minke whales in the Antarctic and north Pacific, and Norway plans to catch 655 north Atlantic minkes this year. Adult minkes, the smallest of the great whales, measure about 10 metres.
There are thought to be at least 750,000 in the Antarctic, and 80,000 off the Norwegian coast.
Japan is extending its research programme to kill two larger species, sperm and Bryde's whales, as well as minkes.
The IWC will hold its 2000 meeting in Adelaide, South Australia, in July. For years now, IWC meetings have been little more than ritual confrontations between the anti-whaling majority and the pro-whalers, Japan, Norway and their few allies.
But Adelaide looks likely to be very different, with the whalers being offered the prospect that their activities will soon have the commission's approval.
Dr Gambell, a British whale biologist, has been secretary of the IWC, which is based in Cambridge, UK, since 1976. He will retire after the Adelaide meeting.
Accepting the reality
Stressing that an end to the ban was only a possibility, he told BBC News Online: "Whaling is going on at a commercial level. It's outside IWC control.
"I would think it much better that it was brought within international regulations and oversight.
"I think the commission will need to move forward on measures which would allow controlled whaling, otherwise it will lose credibility.
"If the commission cannot set its house in order, people will start to ask: 'Why do we need it at all?'"
Dr Gambell accepted that many people would be aghast at the prospect of the IWC sanctioning renewed commercial whaling.
"Some people think whales are such special animals that they shouldn't be hunted at all. But that's
very much a question of different cultures."
"There have been major advances in recent years in the killing technology. The time to death is very much improved, though there is still room for further improvement.
"There is not going to be, I think, a major expansion in whaling across the world's oceans. Commercial whaling is going to be a small-scale local activity, largely confined to coastal areas."
Dr Gambell also believes a resumption of trade in whalemeat and products is possible, relying on state-of-the-art DNA technology to determine the origin of every import. And he thinks the IWC must face up to the challenge of sustainable use.
"We have to look to managing the world in a proper way, because the number of people is going to continue to grow, there are going to be increasing pressures on living space and food availability.
"The whale is a high-profile animal. It has become a symbol."
Date: Mon, 12 Jun, 2000
Whaling Watchdog Aims to Regain Control over Seas
WHALING WATCHDOG AIMS TO REGAIN CONTROL OVER SEAS
London, Reuters - The body which regulates international whaling must reassert its power over the industry or risk losing control altogether, its secretary said on Monday.
Japan and Norway still kill hundreds of whales a year some 14 years after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned the practice, and it was time to bring them back under international control, IWC secretary Ray Gambell said.
Speaking ahead of the IWC's annual meeting in Adelaide, Australia in July, Gambell said the 40-member body must bring an end to a decade of inactivity.
"Commercial whaling was stopped in 1986, and we've been arguing over what to do next since then," Gambell told Reuters.
"The point has been reached when the IWC must be seen to be taking action rather than just talking about it... it's time to get our act together."
Japan caught more than 500 minke whales last year for what it calls scientific purposes, and Norway plans to kill 655 minkes this year under a complaint it lodged against the moratorium.
"Whaling is going on in Norway and Japan under the control of these two governments. But it should be the IWC's job to get it under international control," Gambell said.
"If the commission isn't going to do it, what is its function?" Environmental group Greenpeace said the Adelaide conference should focus on ending Japanese and Norwegian whaling rather than discussing ending or amending the moratorium.
"To allow whaling now would be folly," Richard Page, Greenpeace's whaling campaigner in London, said.
"They should look at closing Japan's scientific loophole... bogus science is allowing a purely commercial activity to go ahead," Page said.
He said the IWC should concentrate on whale preservation rather than trying to fulfil its original mandate of maintaining sustainable whale stocks for consumer nations, set out in 1946 when the body was established.
"It's totally wrong for the IWC to act like a fishery commission, because whales don't fit the fish life cycle."
"They are very slow to recover from exploitation, and have maybe one calf every other year... they're just not suitable animals for commercial exploitation."
The IWC's Gambell said the commission's roles as a kind of fisheries regulator and a conservation body were "slightly conflicting," but said protection measures were high on the Adelaide agenda.
He said a joint Australian and New Zealand plan to protect a large area of the South Pacific from whaling would be discussed at the meeting, a move welcomed by Greenpeace's Page.
Page said it faced stiff resistance from the Japanese.
"Every year Japan comes under international attack for its whaling activities and every year they ignore it," Page said.
"They're totally out of step with world opinion."
Date: Wed, 14 Jun, 2000
Call For The Release Of The La Paz Dolphins
By Helene Hesselager O'Barry
Eight dolphins were captured in the Pacific Ocean, in Magdalena Bay, in December. They were taken to the so-called ׂDolphin Learning Center, which is located by La Concha Hotel in La Paz, to be used in a dolphin swim program for tourists. According to information we have received, the pod that the dolphins were taken from was subjected to four different capture attempts. An adult female by the name of ׂLuna׃ survived a month and three days at the ׂDolphin Learning Facility.׃ She died February 3.
Dr. Yolanda Alaniz Pasini -- director of La Asociacion de Conservation de Mamiferos Marinos de Mexico (Mexican Marine Mammal Protection Association) -- and dolphin freedom advocate Juan Antonio Ramirez have launched a campaign to free the dolphins and are currently working together with The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) to close the ׂDolphin Learning Center׃ and return the remaining seven dolphins to their home waters.
Juan Antonio Ramirez' incredible video footage shows how abusive the captures of dolphins are.
On February 8, Richard O'Barry --wildlife consultant for WSPA -- traveled to La Paz, Mexico, to inspect the dolphin pen and talk to government officials about the inherent cruelty of capturing and confining dolphins for human exploitation.
Dolphin Luna died a miserable death in a small, wire-fenced pen in La Paz, Mexico. The necropsy report reveals that Luna died from stress, shock, and injuries. The remaining seven dolphins have been taken over by the government, and a coalition of international animal welfare organizations are calling for their immediate release.
Richard O'Barry, one of the most renowned expert of captive dolphins in the world, who now works rescueing, rehabilitating and freeing them, visited La Paz: "Dolphins will die in that sea cage", he said.
Date: Thu, 22 Jun, 2000
Whales Change Their Tune
The sounds could interfere with mating behaviour Male humpback whales lengthen their songs when exposed to low-frequency sonar emitted by ships and submarines.
The discovery, made by a team of US scientists sailing on a US Navy research vessel, will add to the concern that the din now being made by humans in the oceans could be having a detrimental effect on marine life.
The team transmitted 10, 42-second, low-frequency active (LFA) sonar signals at 16 humpbacks.
The whales' songs, which are thought to be mating calls, were about 30% longer than normal during the broadcasts.
Notes, phrases and themes
Patrick Miller, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Massachusetts, US, told the BBC: "If whales are exposed to these types of sounds over long periods during the breeding season, there is a chance that they could interfere with the animals' mating system and perhaps the outcome of actual mating events."
During the breeding season, male humpbacks will sing long, complex songs that contain several "themes" that progress in a predictable order.
"Each sound you hear is a note, and they combine notes into phrases, and then phrases into themes, and themes add up to be a song," Patrick Millar said. The songs will last typically 10 to 15 minutes.
During the sonar transmissions, however, the songs, whilst keeping the same structure, got considerably longer.
Hearing damage
The WHOI researcher said the results were very strong given the low power used in the tests.
Sonar, propellers, seismic surveys, sea-floor drilling, and low-frequency radio transmissions have all turned the oceans into a noisy place. There has been concern for some years now that man-made sounds could make it much harder for whales, dolphins and other sophisticated marine animals to communicate, navigate and even detect predators and prey.
"Animals that are particularly close to sonar when it broadcasts are exposed to very high levels of sound and could have actual hearing damage or some sort of physical trauma," Patrick Miller said.
"Animals spread over a much larger body of water could be exposed to lower levels of the sound but those levels may still cause behavioural responses."
The research is published in the journal Nature.
Date: Tue, 27 Jun, 2000
Japan Accused of Permitting Dolphin and Porpoise Hunts
London, (EFE via COMTEX) -- Unregulated hunting off the Japanese coast has led to the slaughter of more than 400,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales for their meat over the past 20 years, the Environmental Investigation Agency said in a report published Tuesday.
In its report, titled "Towards Extinction: The Exploitation of Small Cetaceans in Japan," the London-based environmental group accuses the Japanese government of indifference and failing to protect many of the species, some of which are rare, endangered or in decline from overhunting.
According to the report, Japanese fishermen kill 22,000 small cetaceans each year as part of a "flourishing large-scale fraudulent trade in small cetacean products, which are sold as whale meat thereby vastly inflating their value."
The EIA has demanded an "immediate ban" on the "unsustainable exploitation" of small cetaceans to prevent increasing their risk of extinction.
Although such hunts are regulated and catch limits are in place, the EIA said the Japanese government does nothing to curb the trade in small cetacean meat, "nor has it enacted meaningful enforcement of catch limits or other supposed controls on the commercial hunting of dolphins, porpoises and small whales around its coasts."
In direct contrast with European countries, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, which have enacted legislation to protect such species, Japan's Fisheries Agency and regional governments have failed to install kill quotas or restrict certain killing methods for these species, the EIA said.
"Dolphins, porpoises and small whales have no legal protection under Japanese law to prevent them from being hunted even to extinction or killed in the most indiscriminate and brutal manner," the report said.
The entire report and graphic video footage of dolphin hunts can be accessed on the Internet at:
http://www.eia-international.org
http://www.efe.es
Copyright (c) 2000. Agencia EFE S.A.
Date: Wed, 28 Jun, 2000
Netherlands Betraying the Whales
Dutch IWC delegation pushing for worldwide whale hunt at Australia meeting
The head of the Netherlands delegation to the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Adelaide, Australia, is spearheading the efforts to resume commercial whale hunting.
Commissioner Fer von der Assen, chair of the IWC Working Group on the Revised Management Scheme, has drafted a proposed amendment change to the Schedule of the IWC that would implement the RMS - the protocol to pave the way back to worldwide whaling. The working group will conclude its deliberations on Thursday.
"I doubt that the people of the Netherlands are aware of their Commissioner's actions, or would approve," said Paul Watson, president of Sea Shepherd International, speaking from the SSI flagship Ocean Warrior in Amsterdam.
"The recent brief, disastrous revival of the African ivory trade should be a sufficient object lesson to the IWC delegates: The resumption of commercial trade is paradise for poachers, smugglers, and black marketers. It cannot be controlled."
Sea Shepherd International rejects the underlying assumption of the Revised Management Scheme and the Revised Management Procedure - that whales are a commodity existing to serve another species.
In addition, SSI rejects any attempt to implement the Revised Management Scheme or move for its adoption in the Schedule of the Convention as an attempt to legitimize the resumption of commercial whaling using dubious science and largely theoretical data. The fragmentary data and vague computer modeling of the quota formula in the Revised Management Procedure cannot serve as a reliable basis for the RMS. In addition to its inherent unreliability, all population data compiled through 1994 was revealed to be useless in light of the revelation that year of the former Soviet Union's covert policy of killing up to 30 times more whales than it had reported to the IWC, a massive program of cheating that went on for two decades.
The RMS does not address pirate whaling, whale meat smuggling, or increasing pollution and environmental threats to large cetaceans. It largely relies on the whaling industry's willingness and ability to police itself - which, based on history, is alone sufficient cause to oppose adoption of the Revised Management Scheme.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
e-mail: seashepherd@seashepherd.org
Web Site: http://www.seashepherd.org
Date: Wed, 28 Jun, 2000
Japan Caught Out
By Jonathan Knight - New Scientist
Where does Japan's whale meat come from? JAPAN'S annual scientific catch of whales is disguising an undocumented trade in meat from accidentally caught and possibly poached whales, claim researchers. According to a new analysis of whale meat in the country, if the trade continues it could drive a unique subgroup of minke whales in the Sea of Japan to extinction.
Sale of whale meat is legal in Japan if it comes from frozen stockpiles, from the annual catch of around 500 minke whales which the government is allowed to kill for scientific study, or from "bycatch" -- whales killed accidentally by fishing gear or ship strikes. Most of the scientific catch are Antarctic minke whales, but around 100 a year belong to a subgroup of North Pacific minkes called the O stock. Neither is considered to be endangered.
However, another subgroup of North Pacific minkes that live in the Sea of Japan, the J stock, number fewer than 2000. Of the 25 whales killed as bycatch by Japan each year, 15 come from the Sea of Japan. Therefore, no more than 15 per cent of the North Pacific minke whales on the Japanese market should be from the J stock.
But the new report claims the proportion is double this. From 1993 to 1999, a team of marine biologists led by Scott Baker of the University of Auckland and Stephen Palumbi of Harvard University enlisted local collaborators to buy whale meat in Japanese markets and restaurants. After analysing the mitochondrial DNA of 574 samples, the researchers conclude that nearly a third of the North Pacific minke whales on the market came from the J stock. They estimate that these unreported catches could tip the balance for the J stock, driving the number of mature females beneath critical levels in less than a century (See Graph). "The population is in serious trouble," Palumbi says.
Japanese and Korean scientists who heard the report at the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee meeting in Adelaide last week remained unconvinced. Joji Morishita, a Japanese delegate to the IWC, told New Scientist that similar studies by the Japanese government have failed to find any unreported catches. "All the so-called suspicious whale meat is accounted for by stockpiles or bycatch," he says.
"It would be fair to say that the conclusions (of the new analysis) are not wholeheartedly accepted," says IWC secretary Ray Gamble.
But Frank Cipriano, one of the report's co-authors who attended the meeting, points out that the Japanese surveys always send fisheries agents who are likely to be recognised by sellers and who themselves may be biased. "It's in their interest to find nothing," says Cipriano. Morishita says the Japanese Fisheries Agency is developing a stricter system of bycatch monitoring that will include DNA testing and should eliminate any real or perceived reporting problems. Under the new system, sellers of unregistered meat would be prosecuted.
UK CONTACT: Claire Bowles, New Scientist Press Office, London
email: claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk
tel: 44-207-331-2751
US CONTACT: New Scientist Washington office
email: newscidc@idt.net
tel: 202-452-1178
The Story: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news_224536.html
Date: Wed, 28 Jun, 2000
Polls Dominate War of the Whales
ADELAIDE, Australia, (ENS) - The Japanese government most often cites cultural and traditional values as its main reason for hunting whales. But the Japanese public does not strongly support commercial whaling, according to a survey released in Australia today by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Greenpeace.
The poll, released in advance of the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission opening here on Monday, shows that 55 percent of those questioned held no opinion or were neutral in regard to commercial whaling.
The survey was conducted by Britain's opinion research company Market & Opinion Research International (MORI), in partnership with the Nippon Research Center in Japan. A nationally representative sample of 1,185 Japanese adults was interviewed face-to-face between November 17 and December 2, 1999. While 14 percent opposed whaling outright, only 11 percent supported it. Twenty percent said that the reason for killing the whales would play a part in their decision.
The survey found that, "Virtually nobody fears Japan's cultural identity would suffer greatly were whaling to stop. Even among whaling's defenders, only one in twenty predict a 'great deal' of damage if it stopped, and four in ten (42 percent) say 'not very much' or 'not at all'."
But Japan's deputy director of the government of Japan's Far Seas Fisheries Division, Joji Morishita, says the survey is "nothing more than sham."
"The survey commissioned by Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare fails to meet minimum survey standards or any other test of credibility. The Greenpeace survey failed to take into account geographic and regional differences to incorporate those communities where whaling is a very significant part of the culture. Had they surveyed the same number of people in the towns of Taiji, Abashiri or many others, they would have to conclude that almost 100 percent of Japanese people consume whale meat and support whaling," said Morishita.
The Japanese government has been one of the strongest global proponents for the reopening of international commercial whaling - banned by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986. At this year's IWC meeting, Japan has proposed an increase in its whaling activities from more than 540 minke whales a year to include 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales.
But in their report on the survey, MORI says, "The Japanese are largely neutral on the perceived importance to them personally of commercial whaling continuing: 24 percent say it is important, 25 percent say not - and half are undecided."
"These strong poll results clearly indicate that the people of Japan no longer consider whaling to be an integral part of their cultural heritage, nor do they support it," said Karen Steuer, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) director of commercial trade and exploitation of animals.
The MORI poll report also shows that Japanese do not consider whale meat to be an important part of their diet.
"Six in ten (61 percent) have not eaten it since childhood, if at all, and just one percent eat it once a month."
"Clearly the people of Japan do not consider whale meat to be a significant component of their diet," said Steuer.
"Japanese whaling proponents can no longer be allowed to use this as their defense in campaigning for international commercial whaling."
Morishita noted that there have been a number of surveys conducted in Japan that show strong and increasing support for the sustainable use of whales. This includes a survey conducted by the Prime Minister's office in 1995. When asked whether they would support whaling managed in a rational and sustainable way the majority - 77 percent - responded yes, Morishita said.
Japan says its whale hunt is legal under the IWC agreement, and is conducted for scientific reasons. The country claims strong scientific justification for its new request to take sperm and Bryde's whales. But IFAW says the whaling commission has asked Japan to stop doing scientific whaling and has said that the information Japan is providing is not required for management. The commission has asked that Japan begin providing information about whales through non-lethal means, Steuer said.
Japan often says that whales compete with commercial fishermen for fish, and that whales need to be culled because they are responsible for the collapse of the world fishery.
Vassili Papastavrou, IFAW whale team leader, said that while we do not know status of sperm whales in the area of the Pacific where Japan intends to hunt them, we know a great deal about what they eat - deep water squid. If any animal could be held responsible for decline of the fishery, it is not the sperm whale, he said.
In many parts of the world sperm whales have been depleted. In some areas, they are numerous, in other areas scant, Papastavrou said. The best cuts of whale meat sell for up to US$400 a kilo in Japanese markets, Papastavrou points out.
The pro-whaling nations, including Norway and Iceland as well as Japan, say the commercial whaling ban could soon end.
The International Whaling Commission starts a two-day working group session today on a Revised Management Scheme under which the IWC is supposed to manage commercial whaling in the future.
The agenda includes the issues of supervision and control of commercial whaling activities. If adopted, the management scheme could mean lifting of the ban on commercial whaling and the allocation of catch quotas.
The draft proposal calls for each whaling boat to carry one national inspector and at least one international observer. Other proposed requirements are satellite monitoring for continuous tracking of vessels, and, in order to control trade, DNA profiles of all whales hunted.
Since 1994, working groups and IWC sessions have discussed the Revised Management Scheme, but have not adopted it.
IWC secretary Dr. Ray Gambell told BBC News Online on June 11 that a failure to signal an end to the ban on commercial whaling would mean "a real danger that the commission will lose its credibility totally."
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000. All Rights Reserved.
Date: Thu, 29 Jun, 2000
UK to Call for Permanent Worldwide Whaling Ban
A permanent worldwide ban on all whaling is to be urged by the Government at international talks in Adelaide next week.
Junior Agriculture Minister Elliot Morley MP will attend the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
His pledge comes amid pressure from wildlife campaigners for action to halt the continued Japanese commercial slaughter of small whales and dolphins.
Mr Morley has said he wants to build on the successful outcome of the recent meeting of the Convention on the International Treaty on Endangered Species, (CITES) where all whale "downlisting" proposals were rejected and the primacy of the IWC was reaffirmed.
He said: "At previous IWC meetings the UK, together with a majority of IWC members, has consistently criticised the whaling operations authorised by Japan under special permits - so called 'scientific' whaling."
"It is therefore, very disappointing that Japan has presented proposals, for discussion in the IWC Scientific Committee, to extend these whaling operations to cover two further species, Sperm and Bryde's whales."
Under the IWC's parent convention, IWC approval for these proposals is not needed and it is for Japan to authorise whaling under special permit.
"We will, nevertheless, be registering the Government's strong objection to these proposals and will be urging Japan to withdraw them."
Mr Morley said the UK would be supporting the creation of regional sanctuaries and a proposal put forward by Australia and New Zealand to create a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary.
This would afford greater protection to whales in a highly important breeding and feeding area, and one through which many other great whales migrate.
Copyright © 2000 Ananova Ltd
Date: Thu, 29 Jun, 2000
Britain Opposes Japanese Hunt for Two Whale Species
Paul Brown, environment correspondent - Guardian Unlimited
Britain is to oppose Japan's plans to hunt two protected species of whale and further undermine the international ban on whaling, Elliott Morley, the fisheries minister said yesterday on the eve of the international whaling convention meeting in Australia. Mr Morley, who is joining New Zealand and Australia in proposing a whale sanctuary for the South Pacific, said the Japanese plans "fly in the face of world opinion".
The Japanese propose to kill 50 Brydes whales and 10 sperm whales in the Pacific this year - the first time the two species have been targeted since commercial whaling was banned in 1985. Sperm whales, the family of the fabled Moby-Dick, have the largest brains of any mammal and also the most valuable flesh. The Japanese eat the meat raw and will pay up to Å–20 for a 100g slice in Tokyo restaurants for special parts of the rump. An ordinary whale steak is Å–15.
A loophole in the 1946 convention allows states to take whales for "scientific purposes" and under this guise the Japanese have been killing minke whales in the Antarctic and selling the meat and blubber to restaurants. This year they propose to kill 440 minke whales in the Antarctic and another 100 in the Pacific, as well as the two new species.
"The Japanese decision in exploiting the scientific whaling loophole has caused considerable alarm. We think the scientific argument has no validity, it is just a way of getting round the moratorium on hunting," Mr Morley said.
In a Commons written reply Mr Morley confirmed Britain's continued opposition to all commercial whaling. A compromise Irish proposal in 1997 which would allow Norway and Japan to kill whales in their 200-mile coastal waters comes up again for debate.
The proposal remains controversial because countries such as Britain oppose whaling on principle, but others see it as a way of limiting the practice and would support it provided Japan and Norway were prepared to stop whaling in international waters.
Mr Morley said Britain's opposition was partly based on cruelty involved in whaling, and the inhumane methods used in the killing of dolphins and porpoises, something for which the Japanese are also blamed.
The main allies of the Japanese are the Norwegians, who will kill 655 minke whales off their own coasts this year, some in the North Sea. Britain also objects to this whaling, particularly since the whales being killed are the same minkes which are the basis of the whale watching industry in Scotland.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Date: Thu, 29 Jun, 2000
Controversy Swells Around Whaling Commission Meeting
By Margot Higgins - ENN News
Delegates at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Australia will help determine the fate of the world's whale population, including the sperm whale, from commercial trade. The destiny of the world's fragile whale populations will be on the line beginning Monday when the International Whaling Commission opens its 52nd annual meeting in Adelaide, Australia.
At a press conference hosted Wednesday by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, conservationists questioned how much power the commission has to protect whales from commercial trade.
"Signed in the 1940s, the Convention on Whaling is a gentleman's agreement without enforcement provisions," said Karen Steuer, director of commercial exploitation and trade of wild animals for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
"That would be fine if Japan knew how to act like a gentleman."
"Any major change to convention regulations requires a three-fourths vote," Steuer explained.
"Japan has a quarter block over the minority on most issues. That creates an uphill hurdle when it comes to increasing or decreasing protection for whales."
An association of more than 200 members from 40 nations, the IWC was formed under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling on Dec. 2, 1946. In its role as the international authority for the conservation of whales and management of whaling, the commission banned commercial whaling in 1986.
Several environmental groups, including the IFAW and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, suggest that Japan has used foreign aid to encourage developing nations to join the IWC and vote in the country's favor.
Harpoon guns are used to hunt whales on the open sea.
"Japan tends to focus on small-island developing states with marine-focused economies and marine-focused cultures, " Steuer said.
Recent inductees to the commission include St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica. According to Steuer, all of the countries have sided with Japan on whaling issues.
Together, this group could block the passage of the South Pacific Sanctuary proposed by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.
The sanctuary would safeguard reproduction areas of whales already protected in their feeding grounds by the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which was adopted by the IWC in 1994. Conservation groups say the sanctuary is necessary to complement and improve the effectiveness of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in protecting migratory whale species.
One of the most contentious issues surrounding this year's meeting lies beyond the vote of the commission.
Using a clause in the whaling convention that allows states to grant special permits to themselves for whaling for "scientific purposes," Japan has skirted the international moratorium on commercial whaling.
"When the clause was passed it was assumed that it would be used in good faith, " Steuer said.
"Japan has stretched the rules."
Since 1987, Japan has caught more than 4,000 minke whales. This year, in addition to its self-allocated annual kill of 540 minke whales, the country proposes to catch 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales for scientific research.
"This is commercialization under the guise of science," said Vassili Papastaurou, international whaling team coordinator for IFAW.
"DNA studies show that there are various protected whale species on sale in Japanese markets."
Whale DNA has been discovered in several Japanese sushi restaurants, indicating commercial trade in whale meat. One claim made by Japan to justify its research is that whales are in competition with humans for fish and thus have an adverse effect on commercial fisheries.
Conservation groups don't buy that argument. Sperm whales, for example, feed mostly on deepwater squid, a species that is not consumed by humans, Papastaurou pointed out.
"If ever there was an animal not responsible for depleting food human food sources, it's the sperm whale."
Many members of the conservation community argue that much of the scientific research could be conducted without harming the animals.
Japan wants to increase the number of whales it can harvest each year. Scientific research and regulation of fish stocks are the country's rationale.
"I said last year that a so-called scientific whaling program that had, by that time, killed nearly 3,000 whales ... was not acceptacle," said Jim McLay, commissioner for the New Zealand delegation at the IWC meeting in 1998.
"Some 440 dead whales later I repeat that comment. There is no need to kill whales in order to research them. Adequate non-lethal means are available."
The IWC has passed several resolutions criticizing Japan's scientific whaling with no apparent effect, Steuer said.
Environmental groups claim the scientific research sets the stage for Japan to resume commercial hunting.
"We could see (Japan) return to commercial whaling out of the IWC over the next two to three years," she warned.
Unless Japan chooses to withdraw its proposal to expand scientific research, the request is likely to pass. But conservation groups believe internal pressure within Japan could sway the government. A recent poll conducted by a British research center revealed that only 11 percent of the population in Japan supports commercial whaling.
"We need to inform people about what they may not have been aware of," Steuer said.
"The IWC's greatest power is influencing public opinion. When 40 nations of the world speak, it is very influential over policy-makers."
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/06/06292000/iwcmeeting_14307.asp
Date: Thu, 29 Jun, 2000
JWT Bid to Skewer Japan's Whaling Push
A hard-hitting anti-Japanese whaling advertising campaign is in production at J Walter Thompson's Sydney office.
Expected to launch next week during the 52nd annual convention of the International Whaling Commission being held in Adelaide from July 3 to July 7, the campaign promotes the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Designed to "push buttons", the ad's concept was created by JWT's recently appointed associate creative director, Mr Adam Hunt.
The commercial shows a trigger-happy sea dog in a sideshow shooting gallery but instead of ducks, the mackintosh-clad salt is aiming for whales - with bloody consequences.
Special effects in the commercial were created by Animal Logic, which won an Oscar for work the company did on the big-budget film The Matrix.
Directed by Mr Lance Kelleher, who has directed several Nutri Grain commercials for JWT, all participants in the commercial donated their services.
International Fund for Animal Welfare spokeswoman Ms Sally Wilson said the commercial was being presented to television networks and cinema operators as a community service announcement.
"We are also investigating our option in terms of buying airtime to get the ad running."
"However, we are confident that we can get the support of the networks to run it as a community service announcement," Ms Wilson said.
"The Japanese intend to push for an increase in their whaling rights at Adelaide.
"They are already whaling via a loophole which permits whaling for scientific purposes."
"However whale meat is freely sold in Japanese fish markets," Ms Wilson said.
"I think the problem for most animal welfare advertising these days is that people are becoming immune to graphic images of whale carcasses and the like."
"It means we have to be a little more creative these days to get people reacting."
The International Fund for Animal Welfare is already negotiating to run the television commercial around the world, including in Japan.
Strong interest in the commercial has also come from the US and Germany.
"Basically, we want to create an impact among the general community so they can pressure their respective governments who in turn can pressure the Japanese on whaling," Ms Wilson said.
Commercial whaling was banned in 1986, however, two countries, Japan and Norway, continue to hunt whales.
This material is subject to copyright
Date: Thu, 29 Jun, 2000
Legal Plan to Stop Japanese Whaling
By Andrew Darby
CANBERRA - The Federal Government has taken legal advice on a bold proposal to stop Japan's controversial "scientific whaling" program in an international court.
But in the run-up to the International Whaling Commission's meeting in Adelaide next week, Environment Minister Robert Hill declined to say what would happen if that did not work.
"I'm not trying to make progress through threats," he said.
A growing body of legal opinion suggests that a country such as Australia could take action against Japan because its unilateral scientific whaling is a breach of faith with the IWC.
Last year Australia and New Zealand forced Japan to halt its "experimental fishing" program for bluefin tuna.
Japan has been awarding itself special permits to go whaling for scientific research under IWC rules ever since the global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. In that time it has killed more than 5000 minke whales, mainly in the Antarctic.
The meat and blubber is sold in Japan for about 3.5 billion yen ($A60 million) annually.
In a paper published recently, the Melbourne University law school's Professor Gillian Triggs concluded scientific whaling could be challenged because it breached principles such as abuse of right and good faith, and the precautionary approach to harvesting wild species.
"These principles of international law may have been breached if the overwhelming purpose of scientific whaling by Japan is for commercial, rather than scientific ends, and if the science undertaken is of marginal significance," Professor Triggs wrote in the Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law.
"Moreover, it appears Japan has acted unilaterally, contrary to the consensus developed within the IWC."
Repeated motions have been passed in the commission calling on Japan to stop scientific whaling. Abuse of right is also claimed to exist in a legal opinion that was prepared in 1998 for the Humane Society International, suggesting that a case could be brought before the International Court of Justice.
However, the Japan Whaling Association said the case of whaling under special permit was unlike the tuna action.
"In this case we have a much stronger case," said the JWA's spokeswoman, Shigeko Misaki.
"In fact we have considered suing the like-minded (pro-conservation) nations in (the) IWC for flouting the convention, denying us the opportunity to go whaling."
Senator Hill also said he would take Australia's case for a South Pacific whale sanctuary on to the floor of the meeting himself next Tuesday, despite his view that winning the three quarters majority needed would be "very difficult".
"We don't underestimate the influence of Japan in particular," Senator Hill said.
"And secondly, I am concerned by the prospects of friendly fire, (from) those who have a not dissimilar goal to us, but believe there are better ways to progress than the sanctuary way."
"If there's any division between those who share like goals, then it would be impossible to achieve."
Senator Hill confirmed Australia's opposition to any commercial whaling, and rejected the views of the IWC's executive secretary, Ray Gambell, who advocated a return to a limited harvest to ensure the commission did not break up.
He also predicted that a current Japanese advertising campaign in Australia in support of whaling would be counter-productive.
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2000.
Date: Sun, 02 Jul, 2000
Panel could Create New Ocean Sanctuary for Whales
By Rohan Sullivan
SYDNEY, Australia [AP] -- At the bottom of the world, the whales are on the move -- and the spotters are out.
As pods of humpback, sperm, southern right, and a half-dozen other whale species begin their annual migration from subantarctic feeding grounds to breed in warmer waters to the north, human eyes are scouring the sea for telltale bursts of blowhole spray or the flap of a huge black tail fin.
Thirty years ago the watchers would have been hunters looking to harpoon their next kill. Today, they are scientists and sightseers who want to study or simply marvel at the giant ocean mammals.
At a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) this week, Australia and New Zealand will be fighting pressure to lift the 14-year global whaling moratorium, and pushing to extend the amount of the world's oceans which offer sanctuary.
"Make no mistake, we believe commercial whaling is not necessary," said Howard Bamsey, Australia's representative to the commission.
"There can be an economic return from whales, but whereas that return used to come from killing whales we believe that now a much more satisfying form of return, and one that has enormous potential, is from whale watching," he said.
When it meets in Adelaide this week, the IWC is expected to vote for the first time on an Australia-New Zealand proposal to create a huge new whale sanctuary stretching 4.7 million square miles across the South Pacific.
If the proposal is approved, around half the world's oceans would be off-limits to whaling, although the commission's bans are nonbinding and apply only to its 40 member nations.
Before the 1986 moratorium, large-scale hunting drove many whale species to near-extinction. Whales were killed for bone; blubber for oil; and ambergris, a waxy substance found in the sperm whale's intestine, which is used in some perfumes.
Since the moratorium, whale numbers have rebounded, helped by the creation of sanctuaries in the Southern and Indian oceans.
Whaling countries Japan and Norway are pushing the IWC for a program to monitor whale numbers and allow sustainable commercial hunting. They say that under the plan, hunting would be allowed but only at levels that would ensure no species is seriously depleted.
Australian officials say the need for whale products no longer exists because alternatives have become cheaper and easier to produce. With whale-watching now a multimillion-dollar industry, whales are worth more alive than dead, they say.
The Australian government estimates that each year 5.4 million people from 65 countries participate in whale-watching activities, spending $500 million.
In Australia, whales often swim so close to the coast some residents can see them from their homes. Last year, a whale even entered Sydney Harbor, where it frolicked for several days before resuming its migration.
Japan will officially oppose the South Pacific sanctuary proposal, which would forestall whaling in an area where no whales are hunted at the moment, but where a dozen or so species live. Bounded in the north and south by the equator and the southern sanctuary, the zone stretches east-to-west from below mid-Australia to between Easter and Pitcairn islands in the Pacific.
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
International Whaling Commission meets in Adelaide
The 52nd annual International Whaling Commission meeting officially begins in Adelaide today.
Among the more contentious issues is the establishment of a South Pacific whale sanctuary.
The Australian and New Zealand Governments are proposing the whale sanctuary to be the third in the world.
They have the support of the United Kingdom, the United States and the South Pacific Forum, but face tough opposition from Japan, which has been lobbying several smaller countries for support to defeat the proposal, and it appears they may have the numbers to do so.
Japan is also calling for a lifting of the moratorium on commercial whaling. That is supported by Norway, which wants trades restrictions lifted too.
It is the first time the media and non-government organisations will be able to sit in on the commission's deliberations.
Conservationists are planning on holding a silent vigil outside the meeting this morning.
The Federal Government has provided $100,000 for projects related to its South Pacific whale sanctuary proposal, which will be voted on during this week's International Whaling Commission meeting in Adelaide.
The funding is part of a $387,000 package under the coasts and clean seas component of the Natural Heritage Trust.
The Environment Minister, Robert Hill, has announced the funding to coincide with the IWC meeting.
The funds will be used to help protect humpback, southern right, blue and pigmy blue whales, and for increased data collection on whales in Australian waters.
Senator Hill does not believe the at times heated debate between Australia and Japan over whales will affect relations between the countries.
"We obviously have a strong relationship with Japan. We agree on almost all things these days," he said.
"There is the occasional issue on which we strongly differ, they know it, we know it. It won't affect our relationship in other ways."
Copyright © 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Whaling Commission backs Japan over Minke Populations
The chairwoman of the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) scientific committee has backed Japan's claims that minke whale populations are strong enough to sustain commercial harvesting of the species.
Japan wants the IWC's meeting in Adelaide to lift the global moratorium on commercial whaling, arguing species like the minke are "abundant".
Although global surveys of whale populations are still being completed, Judy Zeh says current evidence suggests properly managed harvesting of minke whales would be sustainable.
"It's certainly true that if commercial whaling were resumed under the revised management procedure it could be managed safely," she said.
Greenpeace
Earlier, a request by Japan to have Greenpeace excluded from the IWC meeting in Adelaide was defeated.
The Japanese commissioner requested Greenpeace's exclusion on the basis of alleged violent and illegal action against Japanese whaling vessels in the Antarctic.
Four countries, including Norway, spoke in support of Japan's request, 15 spoke against it.
Meanwhile, Japan says it is voting against the proposed South Pacific Whale Sanctuary on principle.
The Australian-New Zealand proposal for the sanctuary will be voted on this week by the commission.
The proposal has the support of the South Pacific Forum, the United Kingdom, the United States and France.
Some conservationists have claimed Japan is buying the votes of smaller countries to defeat the proposal - a claim Japan has denied.
Japan is also calling for the moratorium on commercial whaling to be lifted.
A spokeswoman for the Japanese Whaling Association, Shigeko Misaki says even though Japan can still kill whales in sanctuaries for scientific purposes, a proposed sanctuary is against their principles.
"Because it is against the principle of the sustainable use of wildlife, so we take it as a symbolic issue of the utilisation of wildlife, including fish and whales," she said.
The Humane Society International believes commercial whaling should not be allowed without establishing more whale sanctuaries, such as that proposed for the South Pacific.
The Society's Patricia Forkan says if commercial whaling resumes, appropriate enforcement methods are needed to ensure compliance with harvest quotas, and they could be bolstered with trade sanctions.
She said the society did not support the reopening of commercial whaling.
Relations
Environment Minister Robert Hill does not believe the at times heated debate between Australia and Japan over whales will affect relations between the countries.
"We obviously have a strong relationship with Japan, we agree on almost all things these days," he said.
"There are the occasional issues on which we strongly differ, they know it, we know it. It won't affect our relationship in other ways."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2000/07/item20000703114852_1.htm
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Whaling Debate Heats Up
A D E L A I D E, Australia, [Reuters] -- Pressure on Japan to stop hunting whales in the Antarctic is expected to mount after the International Whaling Commission said today it is no longer sure how many Minke whales still live in the region. The IWC's scientific committee said new research suggested the real number of minke whales in the southern hemisphere could be "appreciably lower" than the long-accepted estimate of 760,000 which has been promoted by Japan to defend its culls. "We can't give a number for the total population at this present time," committee chairwoman Judy Zeh told the IWC's annual meeting which opened in Australia today.
Japan caught more than 500 minke whales last year for what it calls scientific purposes and, with Norway, it is seeking to lift a 1986 ban on commercial whaling. Norway plans to kill 655 minkes this year under a complaint it has registered on the ban.
Earlier, Japan attacked moves by Australia to establish a South Pacific whale sanctuary, saying the plan had "no scientific justification," but the Japanese delegation failed in a bid to ban Greenpeace environmentalists from the IWC meeting.
The Battle Continues
The three-day meeting opened as an unprecedented public relations battle continued between pro-whalers б Japan, Norway and the High North Alliance group б and anti-whaling groups. Delegates from the IWC's 40 member nations were met on arrival by the recorded sounds of whales singing and peaceful protest vigils from both sides of the whaling divide.
Inside the forum, Japan accused Greenpeace of "illegal and violent" action during a protest against Japanese whalers at sea in the Antarctic last year, saying the protesters had risked the lives and safety of the vessel's crew and researchers.
But its move to quash Greenpeace's observer status failed, opposed by the United States, Britain and other key nations, with support only from Caribbean nations Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis. "This is the strongest public support for Greenpeace's role in campaigning for an end to the unsustainable practice of commercial whaling that we have ever seen," Greenpeace said in a statement after the Japanese move failed.
Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said the renewed uncertainty over whale numbers should add to pressure on Japan to end its controversial whaling in Antarctica.
"Clearly it is no longer appropriate to argue that minke whales are as plentiful as ever, particularly as they face increasing threats from marine pollution, entanglement in debris and climate change," WWF spokeswoman Cassandra Phillips said.
Double Standards?
Japanese IWC commissioner Minoru Morimoto singled out Australia for criticism over its Pacific sanctuary proposal, which is to be put to a vote on Tuesday, accusing it of "double standards" given millions of kangaroos are killed each year.
"Perhaps if we renamed [minke whales] the kangaroos of the sea, the Australian public and [Environment Minister Robert Hill] would support their sustainable use," he told the meeting. Backed by the High North Alliance of whalers from Canada, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway, Morimoto said Australia should quit the IWC rather than try to change it role from that of a whaling regulator to a conservation body.
"This is a body to manage whaling, it is not a body to manage whale-watching," said the Alliance's Rune Frovik from Norway. Hill later told reporters that lobbying would continue to try to win the required 75 percent of votes needed for the sanctuary which would complement protected areas in the Southern and Indian oceans. He conceded it was a "difficult" task to win the necessary support, but said the IWC must, in future, reflect the "very strong anti-whaling sentiment" he sensed across the globe.
"That tug of war between those who concentrate on the commercial exploitation of whales through hunting and those who see the body's future more akin to an international conservation body, I think, will continue for some years," he said.
Japan however disputed Hill's claim, saying there was growing understanding of whaling not only for it at home, but from countries like the U.S and Australia.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved.
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Whale Sanctuary Plan Setback
By Andrew Darby
ADELAIDE, [The Age] - One of the key players in tomorrow's vote on the proposed South Pacific Whale Sanctuary has signalled it will not back the plan, saying it is doomed to failure.
While in support of conservation, the Irish commissioner at the International Whaling Commission, Michael Canny, said tightly controlled commercial whaling was the only way to halt the controversial practice of "scientific" whaling.
Under this loophole in IWC rules, Japan runs a $60 million-plus industry taking more than 500 minke whales a year, mainly inside the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. It has also awarded itself scientific permits to take two of the species of great whales, Sperm and Bryde's, in the north Pacific this northern summer.
Mr Canny said the Irish proposal would reduce by several hundred the number of whales being killed now. It would confine whaling to IWC-sanctioned kills in a country's own waters with a ban on trade and on "scientific" whaling. He said unity between conservation nations was the key to success.
Mr Canny said that the planned vote tomorrow should be deferred for further debate. He said the Australian-backed plan for a sanctuary was unlikely to cut the number of whales being killed and that in the long term it would be better for Australia to back the Irish plan for controlled whaling in exchange for a package of conservation restrictions.
Mr Canny, the chairman of the IWC, was speaking to The Age ahead of the organisation's meeting in Adelaide opening today.
Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill was joined at a public rally yesterday by government ministers from New Zealand and the United Kingdom in a show of support for the sanctuary.
But Senator Hill was pessimistic about the chances of success at this first attempt at a vote, mainly because of "friendly fire" from a core group of nations, including Ireland, that are in support of conservation but will abstain.
Under IWC rules, Japan is not bound by the Southern Ocean Sanctuary because it objected to it originally.
"For a sanctuary to work you have to have consensus. It's been demonstrated in the Southern Ocean, where Japan objected, and whaling activity continues," Mr Canny said.
"This year we're worried whether the tactics are right, and possibly we shouldn't have a vote on this. We should defer it and coax them in... I mean, we could pass a proposal this year for a sanctuary, but the likelihood is that Japan would object, and it wouldn't achieve anything."
Senator Hill agreed that it was possible for Japan to object.
"It's not a perfect sanctuary," he said.
"But it's a lot better than nothing."
Japanese and environmental interests last night ramped up advertising campaigns in Australia, with a series of hard-hitting television commercials.
But a spokeswoman for the Japan Whaling Association, Shigeko Misaki, said plans for large-scale letterboxing in Sydney and Melbourne had been dropped.
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2000
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Japan Attacks Australia's Conservation Record
ADELAIDE, AAP -- Japan accused Australia of double standards in a scathing opening statement to the International Whaling Commission annual meeting in Adelaide today.
Japan's commissioner to the meeting, Minoru Morimoto, blasted Australia's stance on kangaroo culling, greenhouse gas emissions and criticised Environment Minister Robert Hill.
He said Japan's whaling industry was being denied a 'fair go' by Australia and Senator Hill, whose 'double standards' had been noted with concern by the Japanese government.
Mr Morimoto said Australia's proposal for a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific ocean was a 'political attempt to further subvert' international conventions for the regulation of whaling.
The sanctuary proposal will be voted on tomorrow by IWC delegates but Mr Morimoto said its establishment would be illegal.
"It is the view of my government that the proposal ... is part of the misinformation about whales and whaling," Mr Morimoto said in his opening statement.
"While (international whaling regulations) provide for the establishment of sanctuaries, it requires that such a measure be necessary to carry out the purpose of the convention and that it be based on scientific findings."
"The proposal for a South Pacific sanctuary ... clearly does not meet these requirements. Its establishment would therefore be illegal."
Mr Morimoto also attacked Senator Hill's recent remarks that the IWC should alter its role from regulating commercial whaling to conservation.
"With due respect, we would remind Senator Hill that the role of the IWC cannot be changed simply because he may wish it," he said.
"If Senator Hill does not agree with the specified purpose of the convention and the mandate of the commission, we suggest he take Australia out of the IWC."
"Rather than trying to subvert the purposes of the treaty, Australia should live up to its obligations as a signatory government."
Mr Morimoto said Japan had noted the Australian government's double standard regarding wildlife resources.
"Each year, the government of Australia authorises the killing of more than two million kangaroos based on scientific advice," he said.
"The Australian kangaroo industry argues that in a protein starved world, it is morally indefensible not to utilise these animals in a sustainable way."
"For the same reasons, the government of Australia and this commission should support the use of abundant whale resources."
"How can the minister of environment of a country that argues it should be allowed to emit more greenhouse gases object to the sustainable use of whale resources? Where is the fair go?"
Senator Hill said Japan and Mr Morimoto were entitled to their opinions.
"You can't expect countries that have a strong, positive bilateral relationship to agree on everything," he said here today.
"This is an issue where Japan and Australia have strongly disagreed for a long period of time ... yet our relationship in so many ways is a strong and positive one."
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Japan Calls for Secret Ballot on Whale Haven
By Environment Reporter Belinda Huppatz - The Advertiser
JAPAN is calling for a secret ballot on Australia and New Zealand's plan for a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific.
The Japanese Government will make the controversial call at International Whaling Commission meetings starting in Adelaide today. Japanese Government spokesman Joji Morishita said yesterday he believed a secret ballot would help protect countries wanting to oppose the sanctuary.
Mr Morishita, the deputy director of the Japan's Far Seas Fisheries Division, said delegates who wanted the moratorium on commercial whaling lifted had been physically attacked by anti-whaling groups in the past.
"We have to be prepared for everything, emotions are very high," Mr Morishita said.
The move follows Japan's announcement on Friday it would also attempt to have anti-whaling group Greenpeace ousted from hearings.
Japan's commissioner at the hearings, Mr Minoru Morimoto, said Greenpeace had waged "violent" campaigns against his country's scientific research vessels used to hunt whales.
Australia's Environment Minister Robert Hill yesterday opposed the secret ballot, saying each country should be identified with their vote.
"It's not a question of delegates, it's a question of country," Mr Hill said.
Mr Hill said Japan had attempted to make IWC votes secret in the past and Australia had always opposed the plan.
He said Australia had to take responsibility for almost hunting some whales to extinction in the past and wanted the sanctuary to protect whales in the future.
"Having learned our lesson we now want to take it to the world that it's better to let the whales live and that we can live in harmony," Mr Hill said.
A Southern Ocean Sanctuary was created for whales in 1994 but those migrating along the eastern side of Australia are not protected.
"It's illogical," Mr Hill said.
New Zealand conservation minister Sandra Lee has arrived in Adelaide to support the joint proposal.
The plan also has been backed by the South Pacific Forum and the United States, United Kingdom and France are co-sponsors.
Greenpeace spokesman Zac Qereqeretabua called on countries considering abstaining from voting on the sanctuary plan to recognise it had full support from those in the region.
Meanwhile, Mr Morimoto was quoted in The Advertiser on Saturday as saying his government was buying votes from Caribbean nations. Mr Morimotu in fact denied accusations that his country was buying votes.
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Irish Whaling Plan Opposed as Commission Meets
By Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent - The Irish Times
AUSTRALIA: Ireland's proposal for a global whale sanctuary, which would also permit limited hunting within 200-mile limits, will be one of the most controversial issues for debate when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets in Australia today.
The compromise proposal, first submitted three years ago in an attempt to end the impasse over the future of the whale, has split the environmental community. Loopholes in the current moratorium on whaling have allowed Japan and Norway to continue hunting the threatened species, and both states are pushing to have the ban lifted altogether.
A coalition of 140 campaign groups worldwide, including 13 from Ireland, has issued a statement opposing the Irish motion. The coalition called on the Government to reconsider its position, saying the move would "revive a global whaling industry and a market for whale meat which would destroy the world's surviving whale populations".
"About 40 per cent of the world's oceans lie within the 200mile limits of coastal states," said Mr Andy Ottaway, a former Greenpeace member and director of the British-based Campaign Whale organisation.
"Nearly all of the world's whales spend part, if not the majority, of their lives within these waters when feeding, migrating, breeding or nursing young. These whale populations are under increasing stress."
However, Ms Cassandra Phillips, of the World Wide Fund for Nature, is not so critical.
"Currently, the situation is worse than deadlocked, because the number of whales being killed by Japan and Norway is steadily rising."
The motion was submitted on behalf of the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms ile de Valera, in 1997 - the year that Ireland took up the chair of the prestigious IWC under Mr Michael Canny of Dśchas. It allows for a global sanctuary, which would permit whaling in coastal zones up to 200 miles offshore, subject to inspection and observation procedures.
The proposal stipulates that whale products would be for local consumption only. It also proposes phasing out lethal scientific whaling, and the regulation of whale watching.
"The IWC is at an impasse," the wording, tabled at the IWC meeting in Monaco in 1997, emphasised.
"Despite the moratorium, the IWC does not now control or regulate all whaling in the world. Whaling takes place legally in accordance with the Convention under objection to the moratorium, or under Article VIII (scientific)."
The catch increased from 383 whales in 1992 to 1,043 in 1997.
Ireland has stressed that the measure would be underpinned by inspection and observation. However, Norway is opposed to allowing observers on its vessels, and both states are opposed to funding the inspection system. This represents one of the main obstacles to achieving the required consensus during the three-day meeting in Adelaide.
Meanwhile, Ireland has turned down a request from Australia to support a new whale sanctuary in the south Pacific.
Story: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2000/0703/wor10.htm
Date: Mon, 03 Jul, 2000
Antarctic Minke Numbers Impossible to Estimate
By environment correspondent Alex Kirby - BBC News
Minke whale numbers 'declining'
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) says there are fewer minke whales in the southern oceans than it had thought.
The IWC scientific committee said the true number was probably "appreciably lower" than the 760,000 estimate accepted till now.
It said it could not rule out the possibility that the Antarctic minke population had suffered a decline, which could be continuing.
And it said whaling by the former Soviet fleet in the southern Pacific had been far more destructive than the whalers had admitted at the time.
Minkes are the smallest of the great whales, reaching about 10 metres in maturity. They are also the most abundant.
Numbers unknown
The commission's scientists say the estimate of 760,000 Southern Hemisphere minkes was based on surveys conducted in the 1980s.
Saying the estimates were now probably "appreciably lower", the scientific committee said it could not provide any reliable estimates of current minke abundance in the region.
Cassandra Phillips of the World Wide Fund for Nature, who is at the IWC meeting in Adelaide, said that minkes faced increasing threats of other kinds as well - marine pollution, entanglement in debris, and climate change.
"We hope this renewed uncertainty over whale numbers will encourage Japan to recognise the proposed southern ocean sanctuary, and to end its whaling there."
Cassandra Phillips told BBC News Online: "We think this is very significant. The Japanese have been bandying around this figure of three-quarters of a million minkes, but now there's really authoritative evidence that it's totally unreliable.
"It throws into even more question the scientific whaling that's taking place now."
Killing permitted
Japan plans to catch 540 minkes in Antarctic waters this year, using an IWC rule which allows unlimited catches of any species so long as the whales are killed in the name of scientific research. The whalers acknowledge that many people in Japan like to eat whale meat.
Norway, the only country apart from Japan that continues to hunt whales, plans to kill 655 North Atlantic minkes this year. It objected to the IWC's moratorium on commercial whaling, in force since 1986, and so is allowed to ignore it.
The IWC scientific committee's disclosures about the extent of Soviet whaling several decades ago may help to explain why some species are recovering only very slowly from the mass slaughter of the commercial era.
In those days, the IWC assigned members quotas of the whales they were entitled to catch. In the 1959/60 season, the committee says, the Soviet fleet had a quota of 720 humpback whales in the southern Pacific.
It actually caught almost 20 times as many - a total of 12,945 humpbacks, roughly the number thought to survive today in the entire Southern Hemisphere.
Among changes in the list of recognised cetacean species, the committee recommends accepting that there are three species of right whale, not the two recognised today. It says the reduction of deaths caused by human activity among northern right whales should be a priority.
Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_817000/817238.stm
Date: Tue, 04 Jul, 2000
Japan Sinks Pacific Whale Sanctuary Proposal
ADELAIDE, Australia, July 4 (AFP) - Japan and its pro-whaling allies popped the champagne corks Tuesday after sinking a proposal to create a Pacific whale sanctuary.
The Australia/New Zealand initiative failed to gain 75 percent of the vote needed at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual talks here.
Of the 35 nations in attendence, 18 voted in favour, 11 against and four abstained. Two nations were absent from the room at the crunch while six members had failed to pay their annual fees and did not turn up.
The decision is seen as a major victory for Japan, which headed the push against the world's third whale sanctuary, and culminates a fierce batte of wits and verbal jibes.
Tokyo, backed by Norway, based its arguement on the proposal being scientifically dubious and redundant as long as a moratorium remained on commercial whaling.
And it clearly won the lobbying battle, persuading Denmark to join Norway, China, new member Guinea and six Caribbean nations in opposing the plan.
Japan's Far Seas Fisheries Division deputy director Joji Morishita though was conciliatory rather than jubilant, aware that the proposal would be resubmitted to the IWC talks in London next year.
"We are very happy, but it needs to be made clear that we don't oppose a sanctuary par se," he said.
"What we are saying is that it is not scientific to include all whales -- some whales, such as minke, are abundant."
Australia and New Zealand, with strong support from Britain and the United States, based their case on the economic benefits that would flow from whale watching rather than whale killing.
They also said it was pointless protecting the feeding grounds of the great whales in the Southern Ocean sanctuary but not their breeding grounds and migratory routes in the Pacific.
Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill put on a brave face, but was clearly disappointed.
"I'm very disapponted but to get almost two thirds of the vote on the first occasion, to establish a very stong base of support is a sound basis to go forward to the next meeting (in London)," he told AFP.
But he lashed out the bloc vote by the Caribbean nations.
"The thing I find most difficult to understand is how a bloc vote from the Caribbean can defeat the aspirations of a group of island states in the Pacific," he said.
"There seems to be something funamentally wrong with this."
Japan has angrily denied claims that it bought the Caribbean vote with hefty financial aid packages, although environmentalists turned up the heat Tuesday.
"This vote should have been about conserving the world's remaining whale populations, not about short-term economic gain," said Greenpeace's Sakiusa Qereqeretabua.
"It is of deep concern that such an important conservation step can be blocked by the economic leverage of one country."
Morishita again dismissed the claims and instead threw doubt on statements by anti-whalers that the entire South Pacific favoured a sanctuary.
"I know this isn't true," he said.
"I know four or five countries are opposed."
He refused to name them to save them "being put under pressure".
If the sanctuary had been given the go-ahead, its western border would have joined the existing Indian Ocean sanctuary and its southern reaches the Southern Ocean sanctuary -- effectively making almost all Southern Hemisphere oceans safe for whales.
Blue, fin, right and humpback whales are considered the most severely depleted in the area after an estimated 1.5 million were slaughtered last century, although the IWC admits their status is "poorly known".
Date: Tue, 04 Jul, 2000
Minister Questions Caribbean Vote on Whales
AUSTRALIA, [ABC] -- The Federal Environment Minister, Robert Hill, has questioned why several Caribbean nations have voted against a proposal to establish a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific.
A meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Adelaide has voted 18 to 11 in favour of the proposal put forward by Australia and New Zealand.
But the IWC requires a three-quarters majority vote.
Senator Hill says he was encouraged by the level of support and will reintroduce the proposal next year.
He says he is disappointed regional support for the proposal was not recognised.
"It seems somewhat ironic to me that the votes of small island states in the Caribbean defeated the wishes of small island states in the South Pacific for the sanctuary," he said.
"Nevertheless, that's the way the rules of the IWC work."
"We're operating within those rules and we'll be endeavouring to get the extra few votes next year that are needed to enable the sanctuary to come into being."
Greenpeace says it is deeply concerned about the future of whales in the South Pacific, following the IWC's rejection of the whale sanctuary.
Greenpeace spokesman Zac Qereqeretabua says it is unfair some countries outside the region were allowed to vote.
"Its unacceptable and shameful that a group of six Carribean countries, far removed from the Pacific ... are basically dictating whether or not this region, the South Pacific, can have a whale sanctuary or not," he said.
ABC News Online - http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-4jul2000-96.htm
Date: Tue, 04 Jul, 2000
IWC 2000... DAY ONE
From Paul Spong - orcalab@island.net
This year's meeting of the IWC (International Whaling Commission) is being held in Adelaide, Australia. As one might expect from the Australians, it became immediately obvious that this is a whale friendly venue. The day before the meeting a "Whale Fest" was held in a nearby park, with music, speeches, stalls from a dozen groups, inflatable whales, a huge air filled Earth globe light enough for for kids to toss around, and a delegation of young people (KIDS FOR WHALES) from around the world who displayed a beautiful banner and made speeches in half a dozen different languages calling on the commission to create a South Pacific Sanctuary for whales. It was a refreshing scene reminiscent of the energy that got the "Save the Whales" movement going nearly 30 years ago, when whales were facing their greatest crisis. The new recognition that another crisis is looming for whales (i.e. the threat of renewed & expanded commercial whaling) is slowly dawning on a public that has long believed the whales "saved".
For Adelaiders, the wakeup came in the form of a brochure distributed to every household the week before the meeting by Japanese whale propogandists who likened eating whales to the Australian tradition of eating "meat pies". As one might expect, the message offended many and alerted all the issue at hand. The pro-whaling faction and their message is highly visible and getting a lot of notice here, so the whales are fortunate in having an equally dedicated group of supporters on their side. They lined the entrance way to the meeting on the first morning (July 3) in a silent vigil, holding signs calling on the Commission to establish a South Pacific Sanctuary for whales, and pleading with a long list of named countries not to abstain on the sanctuary issue when the vote comes. Later, in dusky light at the end of the long first day, the whale friendly folk were back again, lining the walkway to the entrance of Adelaide's Museum, the site of a reception for IWC delegates hosted by Australia... holding lovely paper lanterns in various shapes, some in whale form, some with messages ("love whales") , all emitting a soft glow from within. All silent. It was a touching scene that no-one could ignore.
Inside the meeting, Day One saw the whalers, especially Japan, immediately forced on the defensive. Whale watching is expanding everywhere, and the economic benefits are obvious to all, far outweighing the value of dead whales. The case was made here again in the form of a report on the economic benefits of whale watching in the Kingom of Tonga. Though in its infancy, there is no doubt that whale watching is already producing significant benefits for the local Tongan economy, even though the population of whales (humpbacks) is tiny, barely there at all after a long decline towards extinction that stopped at the brink in 1978, when the King of Tonga decided to end the local tradition of killing humpbacks for food. Despite claims from a few pro whaling nations like Antigua (who declared whale watching to be a form of "economic Imperialism" and there to be no reason why killing whales cannot coexist with watching them) it was obvious to all that whales will never be killed in Tonga again.
The next blow to the whalers came when the report of the sub-committee on "whaling methods" (it used to be called "humane methods") described the furor that occurred when the UK wanted to show the members a video of the scene at Futo port in Japan when dolphins were driven into the bay and slaughtered last year. Many of you will have seen news reports of this horrifying spectacle which occurred largely to satisfy the demand of aquariums for captive dolphins... after the chosen half dozen were removed, 69 other dolphins were slaughtered in the most gruesome manner imaginable. The video created shock waves in countries around the world and waves of protest were directed towards Japan. The UK wanted the IWC to see the video and condemn the methods used to kill the dolphins. Japan objected, insisting that "small cetaceans" are outside the scope of the IWC's mandate, so the issue is irrelevant. The committee's chairperson agreed with Japan that the video should not be shown to the committee, but as a gesture to the UK suggested it could be shown outside the meeting room. Japan walked out in protest. Though the Futo video was nowhere to be seen in the first Plenary session of this meeting, the replay of the committee incident was certainly enough to make everyne aware of it, and embarrass Japan into a clumsy reiteration of its untenable position.
Far more important than either of these developments was the report of the IWC's Scientific Committee on "abundance estimates" for whale populations. For years, ever since 1990 when the last estimate of Antarctic minke whale numbers was made, Japan has claimed that there are so many minke whales in the Antarctic that some have to be killed in order to help blue whales recover and protect declining fish stocks. Indeed, if one were to believe the argument, kiling minke whales is essential to preserving and restoring balance to Antarctic ecosystems. The number of Antarctic minkes was estimated at 760,000 by the Scientific Committee. It certainly came as a surprise to many and was probably a shock to some, to hear the chairperson of the Scientific Committee calmly stating that scientists are no longer certain about the numbers & indeed believe them to be significantly smaller than the 1990 estimate. Not only that, the methods used to estimate numbers have deficiencies built into them that call for their re-evaluation, and details like "clustering" (i.e. the social habits of minke whales) need to be taken into account. Not only all that, the Scientific Committee isn't even sure how many species of minke whales exist in the Antarctic! Only one thing was certain after the calm, clear presentation of the scientists' deliberations... Japan's entire case for killing minke whales under its so-called "scientific" whaling programme has been shot down. The word used to characterise Japan's claims by the chair of the Scientific Committee was "implausible". Enough said.
A note of caution. While the whalers certainly took blows to the body on the first day of this meeting, they are by no means down. There are major hurdles ahead over the next fews days, especially the question of whether the Commission decides there is now enough "certainly" about safety issues (i.e. that whales can be killed without endangering populations) for it to put in place a management scheme that will lead directly to the renewal of commercial whaling. The debate over the"RMS" issue will be hot and heavy.
Further reports: http://www.eco-online.conf.au/
Date: Wed, 05 Jul, 2000
Japan and Norway Want 1986 Ban Lifted
A D E L A I D E, Australia, [Reuters] -- Japan and Norway moved a step closer today to lifting a 1986 ban on commercial whaling, after many of their foes on the issue agreed to press ahead with drafting new whaling rules.
"It's another step forward toward the resumption of commercial whaling," Campaign Whale spokesman Andy Ottaway said.
However, Japan faced a fresh wave of criticism after it confirmed it planned to add two new whale species to its research hunting program, raising the heckles of conservationists and those who fear that the whale population is dwindling too quickly.
Japan Caught over 500 Whales in 1999.
"We are appalled at the proposal," said UK Fisheries Minister Elliot Morley after 19 member nations supported his resolution to the International Whaling Commission to condemn Japan, with 12 against and two abstaining.
"We feel very strongly about this," he said, saying Britain would pursue the issue at bilateral and multilateral meetings.
Japan caught more than 500 minke whales in 1999 for what it says were scientific purposes and plans to add 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales to its new research hunting program. It and Norway, which plans to kill 655 minkes this year, are pushing also for a resumption of commercial whaling.
New Rules for Hunting
Most members the IWC agreed to a 12-month framework to draft procedural rules under which commercial whaling would take place if and when the moratorium was lifted. But, Britain, which supported the compromise, said it remained adamantly opposed to commercial whaling but had voted for the deal to safeguard the work of the IWC.
The compromise reached at the IWC annual meeting in Adelaide was a bid to end a decade of conflict over the rules for any future resumption of whaling, amid growing concern about the commission's future role as a regulatory body.
The IWC backed a proposal by 10 so-called moderate nations, including Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland, to meet in February to try to advance agreement on rules for whale-hunting ahead of the commission's next meeting in London in mid-2001.
The rules of the so-called revised management scheme would not cover quotas, but would spell out inspection and monitoring procedures for future commercial whaling. Anti-whaling countries and groups want the rules to also cover killing methods, domestic market inspections, and wider environmental issues.
Staunch Opposition
Morley said Britain backed the revised management scheme following allegations that anti-whaling nations were "deliberately being obstructive" but he said it was "relaxed" about the move.
"We have not committed ourselves - apart from agreeing to a framework to take it forward," he told reporters.
"As far as we're concerned, the procedure agreed today is a framework for discussion, it doesn't actually fast-track it."
Environmental groups said they were disappointed with the decision, warning that the new alignment of moderate nations was splitting the IWC's anti-whaling block.
But Campaign Whale spokesman Ottaway said Japan and Norway still faced major hurdles and opposition from staunch anti-whaling nations.
"What is significant is some traditionally anti-whaling countries are now looking for a compromise on the whole whaling issue which has divided the anti-whaling movement," Ottaway said.
"And that is only going to benefit the whalers and not the whales," he said.
The IWC has expressed growing frustration at the deadlock between whalers, mainly Japan and Norway, and anti-whaling nations like the United States, Britain and Australia.
Pro-whalers have urged Australia, which opposes outright any return to commercial whaling, to quit the organization, saying it is a whaling regulator, not a whale conservation body.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved.
Date: Wed, 05 Jul, 2000
Whale Haven Harpooned
By Terry Plane
Japan came to the 52nd congress of the International Whaling Commission in Adelaide to play hardball with a delicate touch: bowing, smiling and supporting their frontline men with kimono-clad ambassadresses and English-speaking advisers.
The numbers had been crunched before they arrived and most of the more than 200 congress delegates knew in advance which way the vote would go on the Australasian proposal for a South Pacific whale sanctuary.
And the way it went was that the proposal was thwarted by the whaling nations of Japan and Norway, along with a block of six Caribbean countries.
Inside the congress there was little response to the vote, which fell just short of the 75 per cent required for the plan to pass. But there was plenty of noise outside, where save-the-whale protesters stood for hours holding placards.
The Japanese, the biggest and most influential delegation, were satisfied, if not entirely happy.
Their team was led by Masayuki Komatsu, a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Tokyo and a seasoned negotiator in diplomatic arenas such as the UN.
For him, there were three strands to the argument: science, culture and mutual respect. Other Japanese delegates felt Australia had only one strand: science.
And while Mr Komatsu and his colleagues found Australia's position at the congress "culturally arrogant - trying to push their judgment over us", he was pleasantly surprised by the Australians he met.
"I thought before I came here it would be disgusting," he said.
"But I have found people delightful - open-minded and friendly."
By last night he was pleased the conference had been held in Australia, "otherwise our views might not have been expressed in this country".
He said whaling and eating whalemeat had been Japanese customs for thousands of years.
Shigeko Misaki, a strategic adviser to the Japanese delegation, said the Australasian position on whaling was an affront to Japanese heritage, based on ignorance of the cultural significance of whales.
"Whaling is a national symbol against the cultural imperialism of Western nations," she said.
"If we succumb to the moral standards of the Western world, we would lose control of our people internally."
Environment Minister Robert Hill, who led the Australian argument for a sanctuary, said after the vote he saw no danger of offending Japan's heritage and no moral arrogance in Australia's position.
"It is a 21st-century whaling fleet, highly commercialised, capital-intensive, carrying out a wealth-creating objective," he said.
"There's no cultural aspect to it."
Date: Wed, 05 Jul, 2000
IWC 2000... DAY TWO
From Paul Spong - orcalab@island.net
The second day of this year's IWC meeting (in Adelaide) opened with debate on one of the hottest issues, the proposal to establish a South Pacific whale sanctuary, and brought out a swarm of media to cover it. This is the first IWC meeting that has allowed the media access to all Plenary sessions, and they were out in full force this morning... with a dozen tv cameras pointed at speakers, along with the giant still lenses of the paparazzi and old fashioned print reporters standing at the side, hand writing notes as the debate flowed. This was one of the most passionate debates ever held at the IWC, with New Zealand and Australia forming one pole and Japan's Caribbean block forming the other. At the end of New Zealand's plea, their entire delegation stood and sang a traditional Maori song of greeting and respect. It was to no avail. When the vote came, 18 nations voted in favour of the sanctuary, 11 opposed, there were four abstentions, and two nations were absent from the from (one on either side). Here's the full list...
- YES: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA;
- NO: Antigua & Barbuda, Peoples Republic of China, Denmark, Dominica, Grenada, Republic of Guinea, Japan, Norway, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenada;
- ABSTAINED: Ireland, Republic of Korea, Oman, Russian Federation;
- ABSENT: Italy, Solomon Islands.
The session ended immediately after the vote, and the crowd flooded outside, to be greetind by a silent crowd of whale supporters wearing black arm bands and linking arms, many of them in tears.
Doubtless, this was the saddest day of this meeting, though the outcome was not entirely unexpected, because so many hopes and hearts were riding on it.
The afternoon session of Day Two provided a huge contrast to the morning's intensity, with a virtual absence of media in the room. Infractions of IWC rules were dealt with with a gentle touch... the discussion bore little resemblance to the angry debate of last year that followed the killing of a humpback mother and baby in Bequia, the Carribean island accorded "aboriginal" status by the Commission, despite a blatant repetition of the illegal act... this year the debate was over the semantics of "infractions", not the killings.
Enviromental issues, only recently recognised by the IWC as relevant to whales, and clearly amounting to a boring sidebar to some, took up the remainder of the day. The most revealing discussion was about contaminants found in whale meat & organs. Here's what the Commissioner for Monaco had to say on the subject:
"There is mounting evidence from the scientific front that a diet based substantially on the meat and organs of cetaceans acts as a vector for various contaminants, particularly the organics and heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium. We do welcome the attention placed by the Scientific Committee on these matters, particularly since we know from recent studies that these compounds, PCBs, dioxins, methyl mercury and cadmium, bioaccumulate in the fattty tissues of cetaceans in much greater concentrations than in fish. In other words, to paraphrase a famous label found on cigarette packs, it is fair to say at this stage that consuming whale products may be dangerous to your health. For instance, recent toxicological studies have revealed unacceptable dioxin and mercury levels in many cetacean products that are found in markets. Mercury levels have been found to exceed the toxic threshold by 1600 times in whale meat sold in Japan, particularly as bacon blubber, and dioxin levels exceed the acceptable level by 170 times. Now, Mr. Chairman, who in his, or in her right mind, would wish to get poisoned? Surely not the aboriginal whalers, their wives, children, babies, surely not the innocent consumers who may not be aware of the risk."
Enough said!
More stories: http://www.eco-online.conf.au/
Date: Thu, 06 Jul, 2000
Door Prised Open for Commercial Whaling to Resume
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Adelaide, Australia -- A group of formerly staunch anti-whaling nations yesterday won a major victory which opens the way for the possible resumption of commercial whaling. Led by Sweden, the splinter group had a resolution passed at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual talks to fast-track a management plan to control commercial killing of the mammals.
It means a meeting will be held before the IWC's 53rd annual talks in Britain next year to try to finalise a 10-year debate on the legal language of the Revised Management Scheme (RMS). The five-page RMS document will determine catch limits and ways to monitor how whales are killed, among other issues, and must be in place before a vote on commercial whaling can take place.
The bloc of 10 nations that jointly sponsored the resolution, including South Africa, Ireland and Mexico, said they were doing so to shore up the credibility of the IWC, which risks becoming marginalised by continued inaction.
"It was a tactical ploy by wavering middle countries looking for a fast-track resumption of whaling and a compromise on the whole issue," said Andy Ottaway, from the British-based Campaign Whale.
"It's another step forward to the resumption of commercial whaling but there's still a big vote that has to be taken to make that decision and it's by no means certain the votes are there for that to be achieved."
Japan offered to host the meeting in February. "It's a step forward," said Japan's Far Seas Fisheries Division deputy director Joji Morishita.
"How far is left to go we are not sure, but it indicates that commercial whaling is moving closer."
Australia, which took no part in the discussion in line with its policy of opposing an RMS, refused to concede it signalled a split among traditional whaling nations. "It's a long way to London," the Australian commissioner to the IWC, Howard Bamsey, said.
But environmental groups fear it is an irreversible step.
"Just by tabling these resolutions, these wavering governments have forced anti-whaling nations down a path they would rather not go down so quickly," Mr Ottaway said.
"What is really significant is that traditional anti-whaling countries are now looking for a compromise which has divided the anti-whaling movement. That can only help the whalers, not the whales."
Conservationists claim the scheme as it stands glosses over ethical issues, such as humane killing methods and penalities for breaching the rules. They also say there would be no legal mechanism to impose the guidelines.
The IWC banned the commercial exploitation of whales in 1986 in response to an alarming collapse in global populations. Japan and Norway have largely skirted the ban by exploiting a loophole allowing them to continue culling in the name of scientific research.
Since 1987, Japan has killed more than 4,000 minke whales and argues there are now enough whales to allow a limited quota to be taken each year.
Published in the South China Morning Post. Copyright © 2000
Date: Thu, 06 Jul, 2000
IWC 2000... DAY THREE
From Paul Spong - orcalab@island.net
The highlight (or low point) of this day was the adoption of a resolution that will see the RMS (Revised Management Scheme) "fast tracked". The IWC Secretary has been given the job of producing draft text by this coming November, and an intercessional meeting hosted by Japan will be held next February, with the aim of producing a final text to be agreed to at next year's meeting. The resolution was proposed by Sweden & supported by many of the "like-minded" nations (that have recently taken on the label "mushy minded" because of their wavering efforts on behalf of whales).
The stage is now almost set for a resumption of commercial whaling, though the beginning point may still be several years away. As bad as things are, they would have been a lot worse had it not been for interventions by New Zealand and several other nations that changed the language of the resolution sufficiently to make it possible for new elements to be introduced into the RMS that will strengthen monitoring provisions.
There's an excellent analysis of the situation in Eco Vol. LII No. 5... check it out at http://www.eco-online.conf.au/
On a brighter note, and not unexpectedly, Japan lost twice on this day. The issues related to Japan's "scientific whaling", long the subject of criticism within the Commission. This time, Japan proposed a radical expansion of its "research", adding two new species, sperm and brydes whales, to the hundreds of minkes it kills annually in the name of science (with the meat ending up being sold). The proposals were roundly criticised by many nations, and two resolutions condemning them were passed by wide majorities. It will surprise no-one if Japan simply ignores the wish of the Commission, as it has done for years.
Date: Thu, 06 Jul, 2000
IWC stands by Whaling Ban
Japan, Norway fail to win support for limited resumption
ADELAIDE, Australia (Kyodo) Japan and Norway failed Wednesday to win enough support for limited resumption of commercial whaling after antiwhaling countries at the International Whaling Commission blocked Japan's resolution for the IWC to lift parts of a ban.
Japan's delegation accepted "with regret" the lack of consensus at plenary talks and agreed to shelve the proposal until the IWC meeting next year.
But the deputy head of Japan's delegation, Masayuki Komatsu, Japan's assistant IWC commissioner, accused antiwhaling countries like the United States, Britain and New Zealand of deliberately delaying discussions on the issue, which is being tackled under the topic of the Revised Management Scheme.
The RMS is a set of scientific and legal guidelines to govern commercial whaling, including new catch limits. Work on the RMS, which is seen as replacing the moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by IWC in 1982, has been delayed for years.
Komatsu claimed antiwhaling countries' request for information on the time it takes to kill whales and other welfare data are just part of "delaying tactics."
Norway stressed the repeal of the moratorium should be part of the process of completing work on the RMS.
Despite the defeat of the proposal, Japan's Fisheries Agency Deputy Director Joji Morishita told a press conference Japan saw "some progress" in the talks.
He said Japan welcomes with some reservation the resolution from Sweden and nine other countries calling on the secretary of the commission, in consultation with the chair, to prepare a draft text for circulation by Nov. 30 containing amendments that would incorporate the RMS.
The resolution also asked the working group on the RMS to reconvene by the end of February to work on the draft.
The resolution was adopted by the IWC but noted some reservations expressed during floor deliberations.
Morishita said Japan has not lost hope that limited commercial whaling can be resumed but admitted the only way that could happen is for new members more friendly to Japan's position to come into the IWC, or for the antiwhaling countries to drop their opposition.
The IWC has 41 members, but only 35 have voting rights.
Meanwhile, antiwhaling countries strongly urged Japan to shelve its so-called "research" program in the North and South Pacific. Japan, however, laid out a plan before the IWC to catch more whales this year.
Countries including Australia, the U.S., New Zealand and Britain urged Japan not to issue special whaling permits to its nationals under a legal loophole in the IWC's rules that allows for the catching of whales for "scientific research," in two proposed resolutions.
Japan caught 439 minke whales in the South Pacific from December to March and says it intends to catch 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales in the North Pacific, in addition to 100 minke whales.
In their resolution, the antiwhaling countries said major concerns remain that Japan's proposal "did not address questions of high priority relevant to management, did not make full use of existing data and revealed many methodological problems."
The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved
Date: Fri, 07 Jul, 2000
IWC 2000... DAY FOUR
from Paul Spong - orcalab@island.net
This was the last day of the meeting. The most dramatic scene took place at a lunch time press conference at which Caribbean NGOs revealed evidence that Dominica has been receiving large amounts of aid from Japan ($15 million USD) in exchange for votes supporting Japan at the IWC and other international fora. There has recently been a change of government in Dominica, the old government being defeated at the polls partly over the issue of votes for aid. The new cabinet immediately adopted a different policy from its predecessor, instructing the Dominican commissioner to abstain at the year's IWC meeting (i.e. not to support or oppose Japan). The instructions were ignored, and Dominica continued to vote with Japan.
Apparently, the new Prime Minister personally intervened and reversed the decision of the Cabinet. In response, the new Fisheries Minister has resigned. The revelation about Dominca came as no surprise to most observers, but it certaily caught the attention of the media, as the press conference was crowded with cameras and reporters. Naturally, Japan has denied the allegations.
Back inside the meeting, Japan won a vote over the venue for the 2002 meeting, soundly defeating New Zealand in a secret ballot. The Swedish Commissioner was installed as the new chairman, a new vice chariman (the Danish Commissioner) was elected, and long-time IWC Secretary Dr. Ray Gambell, who is retiring, said farewell to a standing ovation.
Very little positive for whales happened at this meeting. Symptomatic of the way things went was one of the last votes, on a resolution calling for establisment of scientific procedures (using genetic techniques) for monitoring origins and tracking whale products "at all levels of the distribution chain". The resolution failed by two votes, with a long list of "mushy minded" nations abstaining... among them, Sweden, Switzerland, Mexico, Spain, and South Africa. It became very clear at this meeting that the defenders of whales are losing ground on every front. The whalers clearly won this Adelaide round.
Makah whaling was never mentioned.
Date: Fri, 07 Jul, 2000
Members of US Congress Protest Japanese Whaling
WASHINGTON, PRNewswire -- As the 52nd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) winds up today in Adelaide, Australia, political pressure is being applied from a group of U.S. Congressmen to discourage the Government of Japan from expanding it's so-called "scientific" whaling, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW-www.ifaw.org) announced today.
Despite a global moratorium on commercial whaling implemented by the IWC in 1986, Japan uses a technical loophole to continue to hunt protected species of whales in the name of science. In recent years, Japan has killed up to 540 minke whales each year in the North and South Pacific. Meat from these and other whales is on sale in Japanese fish markets.
In June, Japan announced plans to include Bryde's whales and sperm whales in this year's "scientific" hunt.
In response to this announcement seven Members of the International Relations Committee of the U.S. Congress, led by Congressman Bill Delahunt (D- MA) sent a strongly worded letter to Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono calling on the Japanese Government to withdraw plans for the hunt. The letter notes:
"The fact that Japan continues to kill increasing numbers of whales in this internationally recognized Sanctuary, ignoring an international moratorium and the views of the overwhelming majority of IWC members, is an issue of great concern to many Americans and many other people of the world."
Delahunt, one of the strongest environmentalists in Congress, said the Japanese plan defied international opinion and the spirit of IWC regulations.
"Nations either honor international agreements or they do not. The Government of Japan has consistently ignored the wishes of the IWC and the vast majority of nations on the whaling issue," Delahunt said.
"Japan's policies do little to advance our efforts to bring whale species back from near extinction and to nurture a worldwide whale watching industry," said Delahunt.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) recently launched a campaign to end Japanese whaling. IFAW Director of Public Affairs Patrick Ramage, returning today from the Adelaide IWC meeting, called the Delahunt letter, "an important signal at an important time. The Congressman jumped on this as soon as he heard about it," said Ramage.
"We were surprised that in the final days of a very busy Congressional session, he so quickly recruited Members from both sides of the aisle to join him in this effort. This message from seven Members of the International Relations Committee will definitely have an impact in Japan. We are hopeful that the Japanese Government will reconsider their whaling plans."
An independent poll conducted for IFAW in Japan earlier this year showed that despite regular claims to the contrary, the majority of the Japanese people have never eaten whale meat and do not consider it an important part of Japanese tradition or culture. A majority said that the country should stop whaling if it caused damage to Japan's reputation internationally.
For further information or a copy of the Member's letter, please contact:
Jennifer Ferguson-Mitchell, email: jfm@ifaw.org
SOURCE International Fund for Animal Welfare Web Site: http://www.ifaw.org
Date: Mon, 17 Jul, 2000
How much has Whaling Really Cost?
By Austin Ramzy
Watchdogs estimate $5 million
Peninsula Daily News - A taxpayer watchdog group says the government has spent close to $5 million on Makah whale hunts, which it labeled a tradition that isn't worth keeping.
But a close look at the Citizens Against Government Waste report on the hunt reveals just how difficult it is to calculate how much tax money has been spent on the endeavor.
The report lists money spent in several areas, including for Coast Guard enforcement of a safety zone around the whalers, legal fees in a court battle over the hunt and the deployment of National Guard troops for a tribal celebration.
Makah whale hunt opponents who brought the story to the 600,000 member private, non-profit group's attention, praised the article.
"I was really pleased that the Citizens Against Government Waste looked at the information we sent them and actually did a report," said Sandra Abels of U.S. Citizens Against Whaling.
"We tried to get local media to follow up on how much the hunt cost taxpayers and haven't got much response. It's refreshing to have somebody actually look at this. This is wrong to spend $4.7 million in taxpayer money to kill a whale."
Anti-whaling activist Dan Spomer, who initially forwarded the story idea to the group, wrote, "It's a tough piece - far tougher than we could have imagined."
Makah Whaling Commission Chairman Keith Johnson said the costs pale in comparison wih what the tribe gave up in its treaty with the U.S. government.
The Makah tribe signed a treaty in 1855 that guaranteed its right to hunt whales. In return, the tribe ceded most of its lands to the United States, including nearly all of the Olympic Peninsula.
"The U.S. government has a treaty with us (that) we almost paid for with our lives and our culture. It's come at a very high price," Johnson said.
"It's been paid, it's been paid and it's been paid. It's not a waste of government money."
COAST GUARD DISCREPANCY
One of the steepest hunt costs, according to the Washington, D.C.-based group's report, is the Coast Guard's enforcement of a moving exclusionary zone around the hunt canoe, which was first enacted in October 1998.
According to the Citizens Against Government Waste, or CAGW, it cost $924,000 for the Coast Guard to enforce the exclusionary zone during hunts this spring.
That figure, which is based on an estimate from Abels, is more than four times what the Coast Guard reports its costs were for this spring's hunt, which didn't result in a whale kill.
According to Cmdr. Ed. Kaetzel, operations officer for Coast Guard Group Port Angeles, a total of 34 hours of helicopter patrols, 65 hours of cutter patrols, 88 hours of utility boat patrols and 112 hours of small boat patrols took place during nine days of hunting this spring.
Based on Coast Guard hourly standard rates of $588 an hour for cutters, $3,400 an hour for helicopters, $612 an hour for patrol boats, and $192 an hour for small boats, the actual costs this spring were $229,180.
The Coast Guard costs are part of normal operating expenses, Kaetzel said.
"A lot of this we would have been flying anyway," he said. "These are not extra hours. Instead of patrolling (farther out) they were in closer to Neah Bay. There was really nothing extra that we have to go back and get additional funding for."
Kaetzel did not have figures available for previous years, but estimated the costs for last year, when the tribe killed its first whale in 70 years, were similar to this year.
METCALF V. DALEY LEGAL FEES
If the estimates of Coast Guard expenses are high, the count of legal expenses are likely low.
In 1997 environmental groups and U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash;, filed suit against Commerce Secretary William Daley to block the whale hunt. Last month a three-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the federal government's environmental studies on the hunt were inadequate.
The CAGW article lists legal fees for Metcalf v. Daley at $44,800. That figure is based on a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the Department of Interior in 1998 and only lists approved legal fees for that year.
Since then legal costs, based on $70-an-hour attorney fees, have likely climbed as the case worked its way through the courts.
One of the most well-known costs of the whale hunt is $751,295 spent on sending National Guard troops to Neah Bay for Makah Days in 1998. Tribal officials had feared protests during the annual celebration, but none occurred.
The CAGW reports lists several other Makah Days law enforcement expenses. The sums are based on Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Clallam County Sheriff's Office spent $40,000 on Makah whaling-related law enforcement expenses in 1998. Following the celebration Sheriff Joe Hawe told county commissioners it cost $26,000 to have personnel standing by during the event.
In 1998 the sheriff's office also received a $10,000 federal grant to be used for communications expenses.
The U.S. Marshals Service spent $13,910 on personnel and travel costs during Makah Days.
The hunt expenses included $335,000 allocated by National Marine Fisheries Serivce from 1996 to 1998. That money went to pay for such expenses as tribal members attending International Whaling Commission meetings and research into whale killing methods.
The $335,000 doesn't encompass all of the money spent on the hunt by the Fisheries Service, said Brain Gorman, an agency spokesman.
"That does not include money spent as a function of our responsibility and involvement with this issue including such things as defending the Makah lawsuit, travel to the reservation, telephone calls," Gorman said.
Also included in the figures was $10,000 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1997.
CAGW was unalbe to produce documentation for one large item in the article: $435,000 for a "grant to teach the tribe how to eat whale meat."
According to the author of the article, Kerrie Rezac, the official documentation for that expense came from Spomer, the anti-whaling activist. According to Spomer, the only copy of an article outlining that expense was in the hands of CAGW.
Date: Fri, 21 Jul, 2000
Netherlands Whale Hunt Exposed
Dutch IWC Commissioner and CITES Secretary leading the way back to commercial slaughter
SEA SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL - The head of the Netherlands delegation to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Dutch Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) are openly working toward the goal of legalizing the commercial hunting of whales and worldwide trade in whale meat.
Fer von der Assen leads the Netherlands' delegation to the IWC and chairs its "Revised Management Scheme" Committee, charged with gathering input from member nations on the regulatory features of a theoretical future resumption of whaling, should whale populations someday recover from the decimation of centuries of commercial hunting. The U.S. IWC delegation's copies of von der Assen's "Draft Revised Chapter V of the Schedule" and his May 26, 2000, cover memo, sent from the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, have been obtained by U.S. Citizens Against Whaling and Sea Shepherd International. They show that von der Assen proceeded beyond the compilation of comments and went on to draft the terms of a return to commercial whaling, which are now to be voted on at a special intercessional meeting of the IWC to be he held in Japan in February.
In June, when asked by the Dutch newspaper Noordhollands Dagblad about the existence of the plan and the involvement of the Netherlands' IWC Commissioner, officials with the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture denied all knowledge.
Subsequently, the terms of von der Assen's draft Revised Management Scheme were provisionally approved at the July meeting of the IWC in Adelaide, Australia, one day after a letter was sent to the Chairman of the IWC by Willem Wouter Wijnstekers, a former Dutch government bureaucrat who is now Secretary General of CITES. Wijnsteker's July 4 letter sternly informed IWC Chairman Michael Canny that "the IWC should soon make important progress towards the adoption of a Revised Management Scheme. This would allow the Conference of the Parties to CITES to adopt the appropriate management regime for whale stocks."
Before CITES met in Nairobi, Kenya, in April, Wijnstekers had recommended re-opening global trade in minke whales and gray whales, in accord with the wishes of whaling nations Japan and Norway. He was forced to reverse his recommendation when the majority of CITES member nations pointed out that a move to re-open trade at CITES could not be made in the absence of a management plan for whale hunting at the IWC.
The popular movement that resulted in the IWC moratorium on commercial whale hunting, in effect since 1986, is considered the greatest single success of the international environmental community.
"The people of the world are generally unaware that their representatives have agreed to the proposition that the whales are the property of those countries that wish to kill them for money," said Sea Shepherd International President Paul Watson.
"International bureaucrats are preparing to go back to the slaughter against the scientific evidence that whales should not be hunted, and against the desire of the majority of the worlds' people that the current violations of the ban on whale hunting be halted and strictly enforced, and that humanity never again subject these creatures to commercial exploitation."
Sea Shepherd International
Website: http://www.seashepherd.org
Email: seashepherd@seashepherd.org
Date: Fri, 21 Jul, 2000
U.S. Suppressing Opposition to Makah Whale Hunt
NMFS Chief pressured, misled whaling commission delegates
SEA SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL - In the wake of the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Australia earlier this month, it has come to light that the United States, seeking to avoid embarrassing and legally troubling questions about the manner in which the U.S. approved the gray whale hunt by the Makah Indian tribe of Washington State, has exerted pressure on IWC member nations to keep silent on the issue.
Concerns over the hunt have been increasing both as a point of law and as a troubling precedent for "cultural subsistence" whaling.
"At a meeting of 'like-minded' IWC member nations in Vienna, Austria, last May, Michael Tillman, Deputy Commissioner of the National Marine Fisheries Service and head of the US delegation to the IWC, explicitly told anti-whaling IWC nations that the U.S. would appreciate it if the matter of the Makah hunt was not brought up again until 2002 when the gray whale quota is up for renewal," said Katy Penland, president of the American Cetacean Society.
"The like-minded delegates told Tillman they would agree to this in view of past US support on various issues."
"The U.S. bullying the rest of the delegations into inaction is indefensible. The Administration has made it clear it does not want to put an American Indian treaty up against international conservation law and simply caved in to the threat of litigation from the Makah by giving them a permit to hunt rather than comply with IWC regulations and our own national environmental policies."
At the Australia meeting subsequently, the Makah hunt was brought up only once: Prior to the IWC plenary session, the Swedish delegation ventured to ask the U.S. how the Makah could know they were targeting migratory whales and not whales resident to a local area of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, a violation of their hunt management agreement. The US delegation replied that the hunt and kill took place several miles off shore and was not in areas where resident whales are found. Neither statement is true.
President Clinton replaced Tillman as U.S. Commissioner to the IWC four days after the close of the IWC meeting.
"We have been saying the Makah whale hunt is illegal since the day the U.S. secured it by violating international law in October 1997," said Captain Paul Watson, president of Sea Shepherd International.
"The behavior of the U.S. Administration before and during the last IWC meeting was unmistakable: They were the actions of somebody with something to hide."
Sea Shepherd International
P.O. Box 2616
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
(360) 370-5500
Website: http://www.seashepherd.org
Email: seashepherd@seashepherd.org
Date: Wed, 26 Jul, 2000
Toxins Taint Norway's Whale Meat
By Margot Higgins
N O R W A Y, (ENN News) - Norwegian whalers can legally hunt, sell and consume whale meat and blubber. But beware: In random samples, dangerous toxins were found. Norwegians may have good reason to watch what they eat.
Whale meat and blubber regularly consumed in Norway may contain some of the world's most dangerous toxins, the Worldwide Fund for Nature warns.
A recent WWF analysis of whale meat samples purchased in Norwegian markets in 1999 turned up more than 50 PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), including some chemicals that cause hormonal imbalance.
"If people regularly consume quantities of contaminated whale meat or blubber, they could be putting themselves and their children at risk," said Gordon Shepherd, WWF's director of international treaties.
"What is more worrying is the long-term exposure to these chemicals and how they may cause an increase in cancer, affect the immune system and reduce sperm counts."
The findings were below the tolerable daily intake limit set by the Norwegian government, but conservationists say the results present another argument against the resumption of international trade in whale products.
The results come only a few months after the Convention for International Trade of Endangered Species in Flora and Fauna rejected Norway's proposal to reopen international trade in whale products. According to WWF, Norway continues to hold blubber stockpiles in the hope that the ban on whale meat products will be lifted.
"There is no market at all for the blubber in Norway," said Cassandra Phillips, WWF coordinator for whales.
"It is frozen and stored, with the whalers hoping the restriction on international trade will be lifted so they can export it to Japan or Iceland where there is a market. In May 1999, the blubber stockpile was reported as being more than 600 tons."
According to Phillips, the average Norwegian consumes only seven ounces of whale meat per year.
A 1998 study by the International Whaling Commission determined levels of contamination among some marine mammals are so high that the animals would be classified as hazardous waste sites if they were on land.
Several reports circulated at the International Whaling Commission meeting in July about the level of contaminants of whale meat in Japan, Phillips added.
"Building on previous studies scientists have just reported new contaminants data from Japan," she said.
"They detected mercury some 1,600 times above the government permitted level as well as large amounts of organic mercury and cadmium in whale meat that is widely available."
WWF and the Ocean Alliance are conducting a three-year, around-the-world study of persistent toxins in the world's oceans.
"We are destroying ocean fisheries by contaminating them with heavy metals and chemical pollutants," said Ocean Alliance president Roger Payne.
"In the next few years we could lose access to many ocean fisheries; several species are already well on the way to becoming too polluted to eat. I am amazed by how few people recognize the seriousness of this issue."
Conservation groups contend that contamination of whale meat not only represents a human health issue but also contributes to the fact that whales are under various environmental pressures. Those pressures include entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships, habitat degradation and climate change on the food supply of whales.
Date: Sun, 30 Jul, 2000
Japan Expands Commercial Whaling
HOPE-GEO Initiates Global BOYCOTT-JAPAN Campaign
IMMEDIATE RELEASE, [WID News] - Minke whales, hundreds of which are being killed by Japan every year under the guise of "scientific whaling," are also called "cockroaches of the sea" by the fisheries minister of Japan.
"This is the worst case of adding-insult-to-injury I have ever seen," says Anthony Marr, founder of the Vancouver-BC-Canada-based Heal Our Planet Earth Global Environmental Organization (HOPE-GEO).
"Japan is the most powerful, most aggressive and most devious commercial-whaling nation in the world," continues Marr.
"Its latest push includes an unethical and illegal global vote-bribing maneuver targeting a broad range of small countries and aboriginal tribes. Japan has pushed the weak-willed International Whaling Commission to announce a likely termination of the global commercial whaling ban, a ban that has been defied by Japan and Norway every year since its enactment in 1986. And now, they are going after the sperm whale and the Bryde's whale as well."
"If left unchecked, Japan can almost single-handedly restart global commercial whaling as early as 2001," warns Marr.
Concerned citizens, even world leaders such as Clinton and Blair, have tried to find a way to halt Japan's disregard for international law and agreements. Good people have written countless letters to the Japanese government and boycotted specific Japanese corporations that have connections to the whaling industry, all to no avail. Unfortunately, since Japan ignores the warnings of Presidents and Prime Ministers, letters from individual citizens have no chance of being considered.
Therefore, HOPE-GEO has launched the BOYCOTT JAPAN campaign to bring about a global and long-term general boycott of all Japanese goods, regardless of whaling connections on the part of the individual Japanese corporations, until such time as Japan discontinues whaling.
The only petition the Japanese government can understand is if Sony, Toyota, Pentax, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, etc., as well as government accountants, all say, "Stop the minor industry of whaling; the major industries are taking a beating because of it!" YEN is the most powerful word in the Japanese language, as unfortunately DOLLAR is the most powerful word in ours.
HOPE-GEO calls upon all whale-lovers to forward this news release to as many people who oppose whaling as possible, worldwide.
"I realize that it is difficult to avoid the purchase of Japanese goods altogether, but I'd like all concerned people to constantly remember the whales when they go shopping, and to buy non-Japanese alternatives as much as possible. Let's all keep this up as long as Japan has whale blood on its hands," says Anthony Marr.
Contacts:
Anthony Marr, HOPE-GEO http://www.HOPE-GEO.org
email: Anthony_Marr@HOPE-GEO.org
Date: Tue, 01 Aug, 2000
Offensive Japan Defies IWC, Expands this Year's Whale Catch
Tokyo, AP - Japan's whalers are back on the hunt. Ignoring international protests, five whaling ships have set sail over the past few days with orders to expand their target list from the usual minke to sperm and Bryde's whales as well.
The expanded hunt has been criticised by the International Whaling Commission, and the United States -- which lists sperm whales as an endangered species -- has threatened sanctions.
But Tokyo is in no mood to back down.
"It's not that Japan is ignoring the IWC -- but Japan has the right to send those ships," said Gabriel Gomez, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, which is at the centre of Japan's whaling programme.
It will be the first time that Japan has hunted sperm and Bryde's whales since 1987. Japanese harpoons took in 400 minke whales last year as part of a scientific programme allowed under a ban on commercial whaling.
Japanese officials base their argument for more whaling on science, tradition and economics.
Japan has hunted whales for 1000 years. The popularity of eating whale meat has waxed and waned over the years, peaking as a prime source of protein in the post-World War 2 era.
Supporters of whale-hunting say researchers glean valuable information on whale populations and migration. Whaling boats are captained by investigators from the government-linked Institute of Cetacean Research, which analyses data gathered from the hunt.
The institute is also in charge of selling the meat and other byproducts -- such as oils used in cosmetics and perfume -- to markets once the data has been collected. Gomez said the proceeds are used to help fund the research.
Whaling supporters also say that trimming the whale population is needed to preserve ecological balance. They say an overpopulation of fish-eating whales could run down the world's seafood supply.
Japanese officials also say there are enough sperm and Bryde's whales to sustain a small hunt. The ships that set sail recently will take 100 minke, 50 Bryde's and 10 sperm whales in the northwest Pacific be the end of September. A second hunt is scheduled for next spring.
"There are many of them, and the idea is to take advantage of such a plentiful resource," said Gomez.
The institute estimates there are more than 1 million sperm whales in the world, for example.
The expansion of the Japanese hunt has not been very popular.
Commercial whaling has been banned by the IWC since 1986, and the group passed a non-binding resolution last month rejecting Japan's rationale for an expanded hunt.
The World Wildlife Fund issued a statement calling for sanctions against Japan, saying the nation's research is a "guise" for commercial hunting.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton have sent letters urging Tokyo to abandon the plan. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought the issue up in talks this week in Japan.
There are also skeptics inside Japan.
Sanae Shida, a spokeswoman for the Greenpeace environmentalist group in Tokyo, said Japan was defying a worldwide consensus against whaling, and she questioned the research value of the hunt.
"If you need to research African elephants, for example, that doesn't mean you need to kill and eat them," she said.
"Only in the case of whales do they hunt and take their meat in order to study them."
Date: Tue, 01 Aug, 2000
Norway Extends Whaling Season, Quotas Unfilled
Oslo, [Reuters] - Norway has extended its controversial whaling season for a month to the end of August after hunters failed to harpoon permitted quotas, the Fisheries Ministry said on Tuesday.
"We have prolonged the season," Johan Williams, head of the ministry's resource management division, told Reuters. Whalers had caught about 470 minke whales of a quota of 655 originally meant to be caught by the end of July.
Williams said some whalers had started the summer season late and that seas had been rough, especially off south Norway. Big waves and overcast skies mean hunters are unable to spot the steel-grey minke whales when they briefly surface for air.
Norway, a major whaling nation like Japan, which is under US pressure to call off an expanded hunt in the north Pacific, resumed commercial hunts in 1993 in defiance of a moratorium by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Earlier on Tuesday, Japan defended itself for pressing ahead with a whale hunt in the northwestern Pacific despite US threats of sanctions.
A Japanese fleet set out at the weekend to hunt whales including sperm and Bryde's whales, two species protected under US law.
Oslo says stocks of minke whales, which grow up to about 10 metres long, are relatively abundant in the north Atlantic. The red meat is a delicacy and eaten as steaks.
Norway's NTB news agency said whalers had caught just 70 of a quota of 244 of the mammals in the North Sea. In more northerly waters, 348 of a quota of 411 whales had been caught.
Williams said whalers would be allowed to hunt in certain areas in August but only if they had ministry observers aboard their vessels to monitor the hunt in which harpoons tipped with grenades are used. Whalers would not be allowed to exceed the existing budget for observers.
He dismissed suggestions that a failure to reach the quotas could indicate stocks were smaller than Norway estimated.
"Conditions in the North Sea are often difficult," he said, adding that shallow water in many areas exaggerated waves.
Anti-whaling countries blocked a drive by Norway and Japan to win official acceptance of their hunts at an annual meeting in Australia last month.
Norway cut the 2000 quota from 753 whales in 1999, when whalers ended up catching just 583.
Date: Wed, 02 Aug, 2000
US Senator urges Action over Japanese Whaling
Washington, Reuters - A leading United States senator has urged President Bill Clinton to consider imposing sanctions against Japan to protest a hotly contested whale hunt in the north Pacific.
Despite opposition from President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and leading environmental groups, a Japanese whaling fleet set out last weekend to hunt large Sperm and Bryde's whales, two species protected under US law. The Japanese already hunt the Minke whale.
"It seems clear that Japan is testing the resolve of our opposition. And it seems just as clear that we must respond authoritatively," said Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Government Affairs Committee.
"Given the threat to the Sperm, Minke and Bryde's whales, I urge President Clinton to closely examine the sanctions available under US law if Japan continues to ignore international standards."
US officials said the Clinton administration could impose trade sanctions against Japanese fishery products and other goods, though they stressed that a number of other options were available.
Japan gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium in 1986 but has engaged in research whaling since 1987.
The practice has drawn fire from the World Wildlife Fund and anti-whaling nations, who see Japanese research as an end-run around the moratorium because the flesh ends up in the market for human consumption. Japan is the largest consumer of whale meat in the world.
Under US law, the Secretary of Commerce will review Japanese actions and make recommendations to the president, who could then impose trade sanctions or other retaliatory measures on Japan.
Date: Thu, 03 Aug, 2000
US Threatens Retaliation over Japan Whale Hunt
By Adam Entous of Reuters
Washington, Reuters - The United States said on today it was prepared to retaliate against Japan with "very strong" measures if Tokyo pressed ahead with a hotly contested whale hunt in the north Pacific.
Over objections from the United States, Britain and leading environmental groups, Japan told Washington last week it would hunt large Sperm and Bryde's whales, two species protected under US law.
The Japanese already hunt the Minke whale.
"We have sent the Japanese a message. We will take very strong action if we find that they are in fact taking sperm and Bryde's whales," Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta told Reuters after a speech on Thursday evening.
US officials have said Washington could impose trade sanctions against Japanese fishery products and other goods if any of the protected whales are slaughtered. Mineta said the Japanese whaling fleet was being closely monitored.
Mineta said the US ambassador to Japan, Thomas Foley, delivered his stern warning to Tokyo on Monday.
Japan gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium in 1986 but has engaged in research whaling since 1987.
The practice has drawn fire from the World Wildlife Fund and anti-whaling nations, who see Japanese research as an end-run around the moratorium because the flesh ends up in the market for human consumption. Japan is the largest consumer of whale meat in the world.
Japan's decision to expand the hunt to include Bryde's and sperm whales outraged the United States and other members of the International Whaling Commission, which passed a resolution urging Japan not to proceed.
According to US officials, no nation has hunted these whale species since 1987, one year after the international moratorium took effect. Both are protected under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the sperm whale is listed as an endangered species.
Despite appeals last week by President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Japanese fleet set out on Saturday for the northwestern Pacific with the goal of hunting 160 Minke as well as 50 Bryde's and 10 Sperm whales.
Japan's Fisheries Agency said the hunt was being conducted to gather information on the habitat, diet and migration patterns of the whales.
The agency said whales will be killed and their meat sold to local markets, arguing that Bryde's and Sperm populations have recovered, so hunting can resume.
The United States opposes all commercial whaling, and has urged Japan to find other, nonlethal ways to conduct research.
Under US law, Mineta will review Japanese actions and make recommendations to the president, who could impose trade sanctions or other retaliatory measures.
Mineta, a former California congressman sworn as Commerce Secretary last month, is Japanese American. He was detained in an internment camp in Wyoming as a child during World War 2.
Date: Mon, 14 Aug, 2000
Coral Hunters land Bowhead Whale within four days of starting the hunt
By Maria Canton
Coral Harbour, [Northern News Services] - Only a day after getting the final approvals, bowhead hunters found success.
They harvested one bowhead whale near the community last week, only four days into the third bowhead whale hunt since the signing of the Nunavut land claim agreement in 1993.
Hunters were operating out of a base camp near Expectation Point on Southampton Island, about 120 km from Coral Harbour, when a whale from the Hudson-Foxe Basin population was harpooned and brought to shore.
The whale is now being skinned and cut up for a territory-wide distribution of the muktaaq.
In the days leading up to the kill, spotters constantly scanned the waters with binoculars, looking for any signs of bowheads.
Little to no water traffic was permitted while spotters were looking for whales and only when one was spotted would the boats be launched.
The licence that gave the 10 members of the Coral Harbour hunt committee the go-ahead to start actively pursuing one whale was officially issued on Aug. 8.
On Aug. 10, Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials gave their final inspection and approval of the whaling equipment.
The next day, the whale was landed.
DFO on hand
Two DFO officials remained with the hunters to ensure the hunt plan was being followed and to take scientific evidence once the whale was caught.
On the day the licence was issued, hunt committee chairperson Louie Bruce said they were not concerned with when the month-and-a-half long permit expired.
"We are only concerned with when we can start; we're not interested in when it ends," said Bruce, whose father Mikitok Bruce is the hunt captain and an experienced whaler.
Back in Coral Harbour, the community was buzzing with activity.
Several more charters began flying and boating into the Kivalliq community on the weekend -- 15 elders from Rankin Inlet flew in Saturday in order to partake in the celebrations.
Acting senior administrative officer Emelda Angootealuk said a committee is organizing a feast, dances and games.
"There are so many things going on right now, the community is very excited," she said.
The daughter of Mikitok Bruce said she and the community were anxiously awaiting the return of the hunters.
"It's been really rainy and windy and no-one has been able to come back yet," said Rosemary Sandy on Saturday morning from her father's house.
"Everyone is very excited and we're getting ready to have tea and games as soon as they get back."
Although the hunt was conducted in the Coral Harbour area with local hunters, the muktaaq from the whale will be distributed among Nunavut's 26 communities.
The first hunt was held in 1996 in Repulse Bay and the second was held in 1998 in Cumberland Sound.
Date: Tue, 15 Aug, 2000
Marine World Saddened By Loss Of Killer Whale
Popular Orca Succumbs to Heart Ailment
Vigga, a 23-year-old female killer whale at Six Flags Marine World, died yesterday (Monday, August 14) at approximately 8 p.m.
Marine World trainers who worked with Vigga over the years were shaken by the loss of an extradorinary animal companion.
"The Park, and the trainers and veterinarians who were devoted to this wonderful whale, are devastated. We have lost a much-loved member of our Marine World family," said Six Flags Marine World spokesman Jeff Jouett.
An abnormal heart pathology resulting in a build-up of fluid in her pericardial sac, and an infection in one lung is the suspected cause of death, according to results of a necropsy conducted early this morning by pathologists and veterinarians from University of California at Davis, Six Flags Marine World and the Marine Mammal Center. The heart was taken to U.C. Davis for further study. Additional information awaits laboratory testing of fluid and tissue samples, expected to take approximately two weeks.
Vigga was a favorite of the more than 25 million people who have visited Marine World since her arrival in 1981. Routine blood analysis on the whale 10 days ago indicated internal inflammation from an unknown source. For the last 10 days, Six Flags Marine World veterinarians had been treating Vigga with antibiotics, after consulting with colleagues at Sea World and other oceanariums.
Vigga was born in 1977 near Iceland, and brought to Marine World, then located in Redwood City, in 1981. She made the move to the Park's new quarters in Vallejo in 1986. Vigga was over 16 feet long and weighed 5,000 pounds.
While at Marine World, Vigga played a key role in wildlife education, introducing tens of millions of people to the beauty and magnificence of her species. She also provided important data to marine researchers to help set safe limits for whale watching boats observing wild orcas, participated in whale reproductive hormone studies that will enable future breeding programs for endangered cetacean species, and provided biologists with baseline information on orca behavior, learning, memory and communication.
The average life span of killer whales at oceanariums and in the wild is about 25 years. Female orcas in the wild may live longer than males. In 1997, Marine World lost Yaka, a 32-year-old female, to a respiratory fungal infection.
Editor's Note: Killer whales live to between 50 and 70 years in the wild.
Date: Mon, 21 Aug, 2000
Pacific Whale-death expert not alarmed - yet!
by Ross Anderson - Seattle Times staff reporter
GRAYLAND, Grays Harbor County - From a half-mile down the beach, John Calambokidis observes his specimen and reaches a preliminary conclusion.
"This is not going to be pleasant," he warns, wincing a little as he wheels his pickup across the hard-packed sand.
"It's been dead at least a week, probably more."
The call to his Olympia office had suggested a dying gray whale washing up in the surf here - the most recent of 23 that have shown up on Washington beaches this year. After 20 years of whale research, Calambokidis always hopes for a fresh specimen. Rarely does he get one.
He parks upwind to escape the worst of the stench from the mottled brown and black carcass. The mammoth glob of flesh is melting into the sand, its tail and flippers disintegrating.
Calambokidis reaches into the truck bed for his rubber boots, gloves and a plastic tackle box filled with knives, specimen bottles and a tape measure, and goes to work.
300 dead on Pacific beaches
While the debate gurgles over whale hunts by the Makah Tribe up the coast at Neah Bay, gray whales are dying by the hundreds along the Pacific Coast. This year more than 300 carcasses have been reported on beaches extending from Mexico to Alaska. Last year there were 273, enough to grab the attention of biologists and conservation groups.
Calambokidis is part of a coastwide network of public and private scientists who respond to the reports. A tall, lanky fellow with a gray beard, he is a co-founder of Cascadia Research Collective, a private Olympia group that studies grays and other whales.
Like many whale researchers, he is troubled by the Makah hunt but stops short of opposing it. As a scientist, he is far more interested in the growing number of beached whales.
But he is not alarmed. Not yet, at least.
"It appears that there is something unusual going on with these animals," Calambokidis says.
"But it's also possible that what we're seeing is very normal."
Normal? Thirty-ton whales stinking up Washington beaches?
Calambokidis circles the carcass, filling out a checklist. He measures its length at 39 feet, 4 inches. He points to 10-inch-wide wounds in the flesh - shark bites taken as the animal floated at the surface, he says.
Using a wicked-looking 6-foot tool called a flensing knife, he carves a 6-inch-thick slab of blubber from the flank. Bystanders back off as gas, blood and guts gush from the carcass. He deposits tissue samples in bottles and labels them.
There is not much more to be done. Eventually, state-park workers will come down with a bulldozer, dig a hole and bury the remains, he says. Private-property owners aren't so lucky; they usually have to pay the costs of disposal.
"One of the joys of being rich enough to own a beachfront cabin," Calambokidis says.
Maybe it isn't Sound pollution
Gray whales probably have been washing up on West Coast beaches for eons, he says. Each year nature sends them on a pilgrimage up and down the coast, from their winter mating areas in the bays of the Mexican Baja to their summer feeding grounds in the Bering Sea, then back again in the fall.
The northbound voyage occurs in the spring and summer, when the whales have fasted for several months. They travel close to shore, usually within a mile or two. If a whale dies along the route - whatever the cause - it is likely to wash up on shore.
Each time a dead whale shows up near a city or town, people want to know why it died.
Sixteen years ago, several beached whales in local waters triggered a debate over the health of Puget Sound. Environmentalists were convinced the whales had died of the effects of pollution.
That conclusion was based on a detailed examination of one animal, a juvenile that was found dead near Port Angeles, Calambokidis says.
"The same whale was believed to have been poisoned by a variety of things - a so-called toxic cocktail of contaminants."
Calambokidis was skeptical but stayed out of the fray. He and his colleagues were still new to the game. As a graduate of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, he had worked summers for the federal Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle.
Instead of staying with the government, he and his colleagues formed a research collective in Olympia, specializing in marine mammals. They began photographing whales in hopes of using the photos to identify and keep track of individual whales.
That summer of 1984, dead whales became a cause celebre around Puget Sound. The media picked up on the premature diagnosis and reported that Puget Sound was in deep trouble. Gubernatorial candidates joined the debate, which resulted in creation of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority and costly new sewage-treatment plants around the state.
The political result was good, Calambokidis says. But the science was not.
Several years later, he wrote his own paper on the subject.
"As a participant in the examination of this whale," he wrote,
"I felt that our ability to discern the cause of death was severely limited, and that such sweeping conclusions . . . were not warranted."
Pollution may be a factor, but the amount of contaminants in the Port Angeles whale "was actually low compared to most findings with marine mammals," he said. And there was no reason to believe the whale had been feeding in Puget Sound. Of thousands of gray whales that migrate along the Washington coast, only a few stop to feed here.
Those arguments may not be popular, but faulty science is bound to lead to faulty solutions - spending scarce dollars on environmental programs that have little or no chance of making a difference, Calambokidis says.
"As a scientist and an environmentalist, I believe the best defense of nature is a well-informed public."
Gray-whale deaths seem to come in waves six or eight years apart, Calambokidis says. There were the well-publicized deaths in 1984, more in the early 1990s and more still in 1999-2000.
To some degree, the statistics are suspect. Dead whales are more likely to be reported these days, especially along the coasts of Mexico and Alaska.
"There has been a huge influx of data from the lagoons in Mexico," says Brent Norberg, marine-mammal coordinator at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in Seattle.
"So, to some extent, what appears to be a huge elevation in numbers is partly a statistical anomaly."
But there is no doubt that more gray whales are dying off Washington's shores. And scientists who want to know why are handicapped because they have so few healthy specimens to study. By the time they wash up on the beach, whales normally have been dead for days or weeks. Critical organs and tissues already have deteriorated.
The Seattle NMFS office has organized a panel of qualified people to analyze each beached whale, regardless of its condition.
Cascadia Research has earned a credible reputation in its field. Its database of photographs has grown to more than 3,000 gray, blue and humpback whales; all the photos are stored in cardboard boxes in an office in downtown Olympia, with digital versions online.
The photos help scientists track individual animals and make more accurate estimates of their populations. Cascadia's work with blue whales along the coast of Central America will be featured in a National Geographic television special next month, Calambokidis says.
But for all Cascadia's work, much of the whale's life cycle and habitat remains a black box, all but impenetrable to researchers.
Scientists are confident of a few basic facts - that there are now about 26,000 gray whales on the West Coast. And they believe that may be close to the historical population - before they were hunted nearly to extinction a century ago.
Clearly, the whales that wash up on the beaches are not healthy animals, Calambokidis says. They tend to have thinner layers of blubber. They appear to be undernourished. That may explain why whales wander into Puget Sound in the first place - looking for food.
Even 300 whale deaths in a year represents a little more than 1 percent of the overall population, he says - a normal rate of mortality. And evidence suggests the population continues to grow.
One theory is that gray whales have rebounded so dramatically they are overtaxing their food supply. While most whales feed on fish and plankton, grays feed mostly on small crustaceans on the ocean bottom, possibly a more limited food supply.
If so, there may be some irony to the continuing debate around gray whales and the Makah hunt. While many whales remain on the lists of endangered species, gray whales have scored an extraordinary comeback. And those smelly carcasses washing up on Pacific beaches may suggest a species that is doing too well for its own good.
Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company
Date: Mon, 21 Aug, 2000
15 Nations ask Japan to Stop Research Whaling
[Reuters] - Representatives of 15 countries have urged Japan, the world's largest consumer of whale meat, to halt its research whaling, Kyodo News Agency reported today.
Japan has drawn fire from non-whaling nations and conservationist groups for killing hundreds of minke whales each year.
Whale meat has become gourmet food in Japan in the last decade or so, as prices have risen in line with falling supplies after an international moratorium on whaling took effect in 1986.
Kyodo quoted the group's leader, the Irish ambassador to Japan, Declan O'Donovan, as asking Foreign Ministry officials that Japan refrain from whaling in the northern Pacific and in the Southern Ocean sanctuary, in line with resolutions of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
A Foreign Ministry official replied that Japan's current whaling program follows that of the international whaling convention and that he would convey the group's request and concerns to all government sections involved, Kyodo said.
The group included representatives of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Austria, Brazil, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Monaco, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States, it said.
Last month, a whaling fleet departed for a Pacific hunt to take minke whales, which were hunted without a break even when whales were at their most protected.
The fleet will also seek out the larger Bryde's and the huge sperm whale, which have been safe from harpoons for years.
The IWC says minke whales are no longer endangered, but debate simmers over the numbers of Bryde's and sperm whales.
Japan gave up commercial whaling in compliance with the 1986 ban but has carried out what it calls "scientific research" whaling since 1987.
At an IWC meeting in Adelaide last month, Japan and Norway blocked an attempt to establish an ocean sanctuary to protect whale breeding grounds in the South Pacific.
In 1965, Japan caught a record 22,000 whales in coastal and Antarctic waters. The number fell to 2,700 by 1987, partly as a result of quotas set by the IWC and partly because of the availability of cheaper sources of protein.
Date: Mon, 21 Aug, 2000
Swimming with the Whales in Tonga
By James Shrimpton
Neiafu, Tonga, AAP - "Go, go, go go, go!" yelled skipper Allan Bowe, at the wheel of his new whale-watching boat, the Lulu Tahi.
A half-dozen snorkellers launched themselves from the stern into a rolling sea just 30 metres from a trio of young humpbacks swimming parallel to the vessel.
Five minutes later they clambered back aboard, having captured closeup photographs of the whales.
This is the high season for whale-watchers around the world, during the annual migration of the giant mammals, weighing up to 40 tonnes, from the polar regions.
But the waters of northern Tonga's pristine Vava'u island group may be the only location where people don't just watch the whales "breaching" out of the water and thrashing their tails -- they swim with them too.
"It's the only place as far as I know," says Allan Bowe, an English-born former New Zealand advertising man who runs Mounu Island Resort in Vava'u.
That's also the view of Alain Lesclide, assistant manager in Vava'u of The Moorings, one of the world's largest yacht-charter companies with bases in the Caribbean, Florida, Mexico and the Mediterranean.
The six licensed Vava'u whale-watch boat operators say there's no danger in swimming near the whales.
The authorities have issued "guidelines" similar to the rules in Australia saying in part that boats should not approach within 100 metres of whales.
But that doesn't stop an inquisitive whale from swimming far closer to the boats, to the delight of camera-wielding tourists.
"It's a matter of using your common sense," says Bowe.
On our recent whale-watching venture, Bowe briefed the snorkellers on the need to move quickly when he manouevred the Lulu Tahi (it means "Shake Hands with the Sea") close to the whales.
Delays of even five seconds earned a scornful "too slow, too slow" from the bearded skipper, and the chastened swimmers vowed to do better next time.
We were looking for a mother and calf who the previous day rested on the surface for a half-hour or more with about 18 enchanted snorkellers in close attendance.
But the pair had moved on, and the main performers for our group were a trio of what Bowe called "naughty teenagers" -- immature whales who seemed to play tricks on our boat. They would roll through the sea in perfect harmony then just as the boat closed in to let loose the swimmers, would dive deep only to reappear 300 metres away.
"They're too fast," said Bowe.
"They were just playing with us."
But patience paid off, and the snorkellers eventually got their pictures.
"I saw these enormous shapes coming towards me, then they veered away," said a tourist from England.
"It was awesome."
Added an American girl: "From about 30 metres away I saw this huge whale with its five-metre-long fins out-stretched."
And her friend: "One of the whales actually swam under the boat. Wow!"
Bowe's Mounu Island comprises just three fales (cottages), one of a number of such small resorts around Vava'u; there is one hotel, the 45-suite Paradise International, in the main town of Neiafu. Main tourist activities are fishing, boating and whale-watching (in season) and relaxing on the white-sand beaches.
Guests can also star-gaze at Mounu. A telescope large enough to pick up the rings of Saturn is on the balcony of the main fale.
Bowe said that when he decided to move to Tonga from his diving-fishing operation at the Three Kings Islands in northern New Zealand in 1992, he made a bonfire of all his suits -- except one, retained for weddings, funerals and ceremonial occasions in the islands.
He has become an expert on whales, describing how they "sing" while swimming -- and with the same "songs" in different "accents" in, for example, Vava'u and Fraser Island, Queensland. In the northern hemisphere, the "songs" are totally different.
"They're not stupid creatures," he said.
"YOU try to talk under water!"
The Kingdom of Tonga, a member of the Commonwealth, is northeast of New Zealand.
Website: http://www.vacations.tvb.gov.to
Date: Tue, 05 Sep, 2000
Faroes Whale Slaughter Heats Up
150 whales killed last week
More than 150 long-finned pilot whales have been killed in the Faroe Islands, a Danish protectorate, since July. Sea Shepherd International has learned from sources in the Faroes that fifty whales were slaughtered in a small bay last week; another 100 were killed in one day outside the city of Vestmanna.
The Sea Shepherd flagship Ocean Warrior went to the Faroes in July to protest the hunt, which is conducted every year in the name of tradition by the wealthy islanders, who have no subsistence need for whale meat but to consume it as a cultural prerogative.
The hunt, known as a "grind," is horrifically cruel, using fishing boats to drive North Atlantic and migratory North Sea pilot whales into shore and roping and hauling on them until they beach themselves, then sawing at their heads with long knives, severing their spines, and letting them bleed to death. The Faroes maintain that the hunt is "as humane as possible" and the long-finned pilot whale is not endangered.
"When they slaughter 100 whales at a time, the Faroese are wiping out entire pods and family groups," said Paul Watson, captain of the Ocean Warrior and president of Sea Shepherd International.
"Aside from the fact that the number of North Atlantic long-finned pilot whales is unknown and they are listed as 'strictly protected' by the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, and aside from the barbarism and pointlessness of the act, such a practice is a direct threat to genetic diversity. They are removing building blocks from the gene pool of the species and damaging the web of life in the North Atlantic and the North Sea."
Sea Shepherd's boycott of Faroe Islands seafood - the protectorate's primary export - is expanding, targeting several importers of smoked salmon and all subsidiaries of Amsterdam-based multinational corporation Unilever, which continues to do business with Faroese fish processors. Pressure is also being brought to bear on the Danish government.
"Denmark has been defending itself by saying Faroese home rule means they are virtually an independent nation and their whale hunt is therefore not Denmark's responsibility," said Watson.
"The Faroe Islands are an overseas administrative division of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Queen of Denmark is the Faroes' head of state, Denmark is their international representative, their law is the Danish constitution, their money is the Danish crown, and one billion of those crowns are gifted to them every year in an annual subsidy from the Danish government."
While the Ocean Warrior was on patrol in the Faroes, police boarded the vessel from Danish naval helicopters to serve notice of alleged violations, orders of expulsion and escalating fines, and the Danish government exerted pressure on the Cayman Islands to pull the ship's registry. No whales were killed while the Ocean Warrior patrolled the waters near the Faroe Islands.
TAKE ACTION:
Tell the prime minister of Denmark to suspend Denmark's annual subsidy to the Faroes until an agreement to phase out and end the Faroe Islands' pilot whale "grind hunts" has been signed between the Faroese home rule government and the Kingdom of Denmark.
Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
Prins Jorgens Gard 11
1218 Copenhagen K
Denmark
phone: (045) 33 92 33 00
fax: (045) 33 11 16 65
email: stm@stm.dk
CC:
Queen Margrethe II
Amalienborg
DK 1257 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Sea Shepherd International - P.O. Box 2616 - Friday Harbor, WA 98250 - (360) 370-5500 - http://www.seashepherd.org
Email: seashepherd@seashepherd.org
Date: Tue, 19 Sep, 2000
Japanese Whaling Mission Returns with 88 Whales
Tokyo, (AP)- Japan's research whaling fleet has returned home with 88 whales caught and killed from the northwestern Pacific Ocean, a fishery official said Tuesday.
Tokyo also said its plan to sample three species -- the Minke, Bryde's and sperm whale -- next year remains unchanged. The plan was submitted to the International Whaling Commission earlier this year.
The plan met strong international criticism, especially from the United States, because Japan added Bryde's and Sperm whales to its whaling mission this year.
Tokyo says that the two species are plentiful enough and that they are eating too many fish. Japan's whale catch had been previously limited to the minke whale.
The IWC banned commercial whaling in the mid-1980s but allows whaling countries to kill whales for research to gather information on migration, eating patterns and pollution levels.
Anti-whaling countries and activists say Japan is catching whales in the name of scientific research to satisfy a demand for whale meat, considered a delicacy here. The whale meat from the latest mission is expected to hit the market as well.
Japanese officials say there is no way to conduct research without killing whales.
The latest mission returned with 43 Bryde's whales and five sperms, as well as 40 minkes after ending its two-month program Saturday, said Takaaki Sakamoto, a Fishery Agency official in charge of whaling.
Next year, Japan plans to sample up to 100 minkes, 50 Bryde's and 10 sperm whales in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Sakamoto said.
As a measure to punish Japan for its expanded whale hunt, the United States last week decided to deny Japan some fishing rights in US waters.
US President Bill Clinton also directed his Cabinet to investigate Japan's whale hunt program and draft a list of ways to respond, including trade sanctions.
The Japanese government said it will retaliate if the United States imposes sanctions, possibly by lodging a complaint with the World Trade Organisation.
"Our whaling is completely scientific," Sakamoto said.
But the research is unnecessary - ed.
Date: Tue, 19 Sep, 2000
Survey Shows only 1 in 10 Japanese Support Whale Hunting
Tokyo, [DPA] - Only one in 10 Japanese in recent survey support whaling or fear that Japan's cultural identity would suffer if whaling was to stop, while more than 60 percent have not eaten whale meat since childhood, if at all, according to a survey released today.
The survey, jointly conducted via face-to-face interviews by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Greenpeace International between November and December last year, covered 1185 people aged 18 and above across Japan. The IFAW is a United States-based organisation promoting and ensuring the just and kind treatment of animals as sentient begins.
According to the survey, only 10 percent of those surveyed said they fear Japanese cultural identity would suffer greatly or a fair amount if Japan were to stop whaling, while 35 percent said it would not suffer very much or not at all.
Only 18 percent said they are prepared for the consequences to the country's economy or reputation if the whaling continues, according to the survey.
On eating whale meat, 13 percent said they never have eaten it, and 48 percent said they have not eaten it since childhood, while only 1 percent said they eat it once a month. Nobody responded that they eat whale meat more than once a month.
On commercial whaling, 24 percent said it is important to them personally that Japan continues whaling, 25 percent said it is not important, while 41 percent said they do not know.
Japan gave up commercial whaling in compliance with an international moratorium in 1986, but has engaged in research whaling since 1987 on the grounds that research whaling is permitted under an international treaty.
Although the action inflamed many countries and prompted the United States to consider trade sanctions against Japan, Tokyo has no intention of budging under such international pressure, government officials said.
The officials said that the number of minke whales around Japanese waters has almost doubled while Japan's fisheries catch has declined by half in the past two decades.
Japanese government officials have said they need to hunt whales to open up their stomachs in order to estimate how much marine food whales consume -- a guise for commercial whaling, according to the United States.
Naoko Funahashi, an IFAW member in Japan, said the survey was conducted by an independent British polling organisation, Market and Opinion Research International, to gauge overall opinions of the Japanese public.
"The survey shows that the Japanese government's claim that whale meat is a traditional Japanese delicacy is groundless," Funahashi said.
Despite strong protests from anti-whaling groups around the world, six Japanese ships set sail to catch minke, Bryde's and sperm whales in the northwestern Pacific last month under the government's research whaling program.
Last week, US Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta recommended that Washington should impose sanctions against Japan if the country starts catching Bryde's or sperm whales.
Date: Thu, 21 Sep, 2000
Japanese Whaling Mission Unrepentant before Global Criticism
Tokyo, [AP] - Beer flowed and cheers went up Thursday to welcome the return of a ship carrying Japan's latest ocean catch - 88 whales.
The nation -- which consumes whales both cooked and raw as a delicacy -- remains unabashedly defiant before growing international criticism, defending the hunt as scientific research.
Next year, Japan plans to catch up to 160 whales. Much of the meat will end up in upscale restaurants serving whale meat.
"All they think is that whales are cute," fisheries official Masayuki Komatsu said deridingly of Westerners at a ceremony aboard the ship, the Nisshin Maru.
Japan's hunt has drawn international ire. The United States punished Japan last week by denying it some fishing rights in US waters and launched an investigation that could lead to trade sanctions.
Some Japanese feel that consuming blubber is part of their culture and are a bit miffed about having outsiders meddle with their eating habits.
"National dietary habits are products of history and should be mutually respected," the Mainichi newspaper said in an editorial.
"The United States and those European states that have turned against whaling used to slaughter whales for their oil."
The Japanese public has shown little interest in the whaling controversy. TV news programs Thursday were devoted to coverage of the Sydney Olympic Games and showed nothing on the whaling mission.
The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in the mid-1980s but allows whaling countries to kill whales for research to gather information on migration, eating patterns and pollution levels.
After pulling into a Tokyo harbor ending a monthlong mission, the Nisshin Maru crew celebrated their return by lifting beer cans in a joyous toast. Officials at the ceremony praised the ship's crew and defended Japan's fight against international anti-whaling pressure.
"There's no reason to criticize the mission," 53-year-old crew member Katsuo Nemoto said.
"This is biological science."
The Nissin Maru and its fleet of research vessels brought back in a refrigerated hull 88 whales caught and killed in the northwest Pacific Ocean -- 43 Bryde's whales, 5 Sperm whales and 40 Minke whales.
It was the first time in more than a decade that the catch included not just Minke but also Bryde's and Sperm whales as well -- two species protected under US law.
Tokyo says both are plentiful, putting estimates at 100,000 for Sperm whales and 22,000 for Bryde's whales.
The hunt is in no way endangering the species, and they are hurting the livelihoods of Japanese fishermen by eating too much fish, fisheries officials say.
Activists say the research is no more than a guise for satisfying Japan's taste for whale meat.
"They're simply trying to revive commercial whaling," said Sanae Shida of Greenpeace Japan.
"Do you normally have to kill animals to do this kind of research?"
Kazuo Shima, an official with the government-linked Institute of Cetacean Research, said Japan's efforts benefit the entire world.
"This research is not just for Japan," he said.
"If Japan doesn't do this research, who will?"
But the research is unnecessary - ed.
Date: Fri, 22 Sep, 2000
Whales Cruise through Sailing Course
Sydney, [AAP] - Two Minke whales cruised through one of the Olympic sailing courses outside Sydney Harbour yesterday.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) said the two whales were sighted on course E, just outside the entrance of the harbour.
The whales came through as the men's and women's 470 crews were preparing to race but didn't cause any problems.
This time last year, the Olympic test event was disrupted by a whale which forced officials to halt racing and come up with a contingency plan for such encounters.
It was predicted there would be at least one whale-sail interaction during the Olympics, with migration patterns making whales a common sight at this time of year.
NPWS Olympic operations controller Robert Bird said all whales were protected and sailing took second place to the welfare of the whales.
The NPWS has a monitoring program in place for the Olympics, with aerial surveillance each morning to ensure the whales disrupt the regatta as little as possible.
Date: Tue, 03 Oct, 2000
Federal Agencies Charged with Continuing to Flout Manatee Protection Laws
WASHINGTON D.C. [E-Wire] -- The Manatee Coalition, a group of 17 international, national, and regional conservation and wildlife protection organizations, has served federal officials with formal notice that they continue to violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and other federal laws designed to protect the highly endangered Florida manatee.
The notice accuses the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of giving the green light to still more damaging construction projects in areas where manatees are already being killed and injured in record-setting numbers because of excessive boat traffic associated with unchecked coastal development.
The Manatee Coalition is currently suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Interior Department Secretary Bruce Babbitt in federal court in Washington, D.C. for allowing hundreds of harmful development projects to be built in essential manatee habitat.
Tragically, this year is shaping up to be the worst on record in terms of manatees killed by boat collisions. At least 68 manatees have been killed in Florida waters from boat collisions alone as of September 18 - well ahead of last year's record-setting pace in which at least 82 manatees were killed by boats by year's end.
The notice letter targets specific projects which will add nearly 2000 additional boats to four coastal counties that the Interior Department has identified as "high risk" to manatees - Hillsborough, Charlotte, Broward, and Collier Counties. One of the projects, known as "Terrabrook, Apollo," will directly threaten hundreds of manatees by allowing an extensive residential canal system to directly connect to the waters of Tampa Bay, immediately adjacent to a major warm water manatee aggregation site.
According to Judith Vallee, Executive Director of Save the Manatee Club, one of the groups sending the notice letter and a lead plaintiff in the litigation pending against the Corps of Engineers and Interior Department,
"The manatee is facing an unprecedented crisis, yet the very federal agencies charged by law to save this beloved species are instead continuing to pave the path to its extinction."
Although Florida manatees are protected under the ESA, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, wildlife biologists estimate that only 2,400 manatees remain in Florida waters.
Ironically, the notice letter comes on the eve of a much-heralded "manatee summit" scheduled for October 19 in Tallahassee. Governor Bush, facing a similar federal lawsuit by the Manatee Coalition, has pledged to attend the summit.
The 17 environmental and wildlife organizations that comprise the the Manatee Coalition include Save the Manatee Club, The Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of Wildlife, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, United States Public Interest Research Group, Sierra Club, Animal Welfare Institute, Florida Audubon Society, Florida Defenders of Wildlife, Audubon Society of Southwest Florida, Responsible Growth Management Coalition, Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, Citizens Association of Bonita Beach, Florida Public Interest Research Group, Biscayne Bay Foundation, Sanibel-Captiva Audubon Society, and The Pegasus Foundation.
SOURCE: The Humane Society of the United States
CONTACT: Howard White, of the Humane Society, (301) 258-3072
Website: http://www.hsus.org
Website: http://www.savethemanatee.org
Date: Fri, 06 Oct, 2000
'Endangered' Help Sought for Orcas
By Miguel Llanos - MSNBC
Scientists cite sharp drop in Pacific Northwest population
SEATTLE, - A coalition of scientists and environmentalists will petition the federal government later this month to list Pacific Northwest orcas under the Endangered Species Act, MSNBC.com has learned. The diminishing numbers of one of the most watched and celebrated animals of this region has scientists worried about their fate worldwide.
The concern is that one of three local orca populations, known as the southern residents, has dropped to 82 whales from 98 just five years ago. Eight died last year alone and there were only three births.
Local scientists fear several factors might be in play:
- Pollutants: Recent research found that orcas have very high levels of PCBs, an industrial lubricant now banned in North America. The suspicion is that toxic waste sites, many of them waiting to be cleaned up under Superfund legislation, are leaking PCBs and other chemicals.
- Lack of prey: The orcas feed primarily on salmon - some studies estimate that the fish make up 90 percent of their diet. But over the last half century, many salmon runs have become threatened due to habitat loss and overfishing, and last year several species of Northwest salmon were listed as threatened or endangered.
Those two factors are at the core of the petition to have the orcas declared threatened or endangered under federal law. The coalition plans to file by Oct. 20.
In a report last year, the Center for Whale Research concluded that an even greater decline in the whale population could be expected over the next two decades.
Researcher Ken Balcomb noted that, because of reduced numbers of reproductive females, half of the 15 maternal lineages in one pod, dubbed "L," and two or three lineages within another pod are threatened with extinction.
"Even if L pod loses no more members," Balcomb said, "they're due for a crash - and that's even if all the reproducing females had babies now."
THE PCB PROBLEM
The fear about PCBs is not that they will kill whales directly. Rather, a study last year found evidence suggesting these chemicals have made orcas vulnerable to disease and early death. Moreover, the orcas are not consuming these chemicals directly but by eating salmon and food sources that have spent much of their time in polluted coastal waters.
Lead researcher Peter Ross said that while he expected to find PCBs in the orcas because of their diet, "what is surprising is the extent to which they are contaminated."
The researchers took blubber samples from southern, northern and transient orcas. The southern orcas live in waters between Washington state and the southern coast of Canada's British Columbia. The northern whales live in waters farther north along that coast, while a third group, known as transients, ranges between Alaska's Bering Sea and Mexico.
The transients had four to five times the contamination levels of beluga whales in Canada's polluted St. Lawrence estuary, which had been considered home to some of the most contaminated whales on Earth.
That was odd, Ross said, because the orcas were thought to live in cleaner waters than the St. Lawrence belugas.
"The killer whale has been a symbol of pristine nature," he said, and now we
"find out it's more contaminated than the beluga whales."
The southern orcas weren't as tainted as the transients, but their levels of contaminants were much higher than the northern whales'.
That "radical difference" could be due to the fact that the northern habitat is cleaner and has better salmon runs, says Kieran Suckling, a staff worker with the Center for Biological Diversity. The center is the lead author of the orca petition.
GLOBAL CONCERNS
Basically lubricants for heavy equipment, PCBs were common up until the 1970s when they were phased out in the United States and Canada. But they continue to leach from landfills and are used in other countries, particularly in Asia.
Ross estimates that of the 209 types of PCBs, at least 120 are found in the northern orcas.
The findings, he said, are important to humans because since orcas are at the top of the ocean food chain, they're also "sentinels of the contaminants" all around humans.
Other orca populations around the world have not been studied as closely as the Northwest whales, but Balcomb suspects others could be at risk. And as top predators, he adds, orcas are a key indicator species of what's happening to the health of marine ecosystems around the world.
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