By Philip Armour, the former editor of the Swedish edition of Outside magazine (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/05/06):
When the International Whaling Commission convenes tomorrow, its worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling will be under attack. It should be. The time has come for regulations that recognize that whaling, handled right and in moderation, can be sustainable.
The moratorium, in place since 1985, has accomplished a great deal. Most countries, including the United States, have given up whaling, and as a result, many species that were dwindling are now on the rebound.
But there are also loopholes that a handful of persistent whaling nations have managed to slip through. Norway has never recognized the moratorium; Japan and Iceland claim that they kill whales for research, though they sell surplus meat for food. Now these countries are clamoring to hunt larger species and to do so in international waters.
In April 2004, I spent two weeks on the 53-foot Norwegian whaling ship Sofie, living with its five-man crew. I saw the Norwegians shoot six minke whales with grenade-tipped harpoons, drag them to the boat and kill them with blasts to the skull from a .458-caliber rifle. Once onboard, the whales dwarfed us all. But at an average of 25 feet and seven tons, the minke is small — for a whale.
There are 120,000 to 182,000 minkes in the North Atlantic. Norwegian whalers hunt them every spring and summer along the fjord-carved coast of Arctic Norway, shooting 639 in 2005 and selling their red, beef-like meat for about $10 a pound. Given the animal's healthy numbers, killing and eating limited numbers of minke whales is sustainable, despite the Norwegian quota increase to 1,052 whales for 2006.
Whalers cite success with the minke programs to make their case for going after larger, more profitable species. But minkes have never been heavily hunted; as a result, their numbers far exceed those of larger whales like humpback or fin, two species Japan plans to hunt in 2006.
For its part, the International Whaling Commission, which is essentially a trade organization founded to preserve whale numbers for future hunting — not for conservation — is predisposed to serve whalers, not the public good. That's why it has failed to come up with a nuanced framework that can accommodate both environmental and economic needs.
The commission focuses on specific whale numbers rather than on general ocean health. But the old saw that all whales are in danger of extinction simply isn't true. Seven of the mammal's 37 species are still endangered, but only two are in serious trouble. Environmentalists need not bother with saving every whale. They'd be better off coming up with a plan to save the oceans.
Whales can become endangered by the loss of other ocean life that sustains them; and when whales are hunted, rather than allowed to die from natural causes and feed back into the ecosystem, that endangers the habitat, which in turn endangers whales. The debate over how to save the whales, therefore, needs to focus on both whaling and ocean health.
With proper management, whaling need not cause extinctions or deplete ecosystems, but as it stands, the fox is guarding the chicken coop. Whales need at least 50 more years to repopulate before hunting of larger species should resume. The commission, however, has proven incapable of allowing stocks to replenish fully, as we've seen with the moratorium's sloppy loopholes. Moreover, whaling nations have allegedly influenced the votes of commission members in exchange for development aid.
A more disinterested body needs to govern whale hunting, and I suggest the United Nations. Fifty years would give the United Nations time to configure a global fishing commission — and the International Whaling Commission time to dismantle. Limited whaling of certain species would continue, while the others would be given a rest. Conservation is the best option not just for the environment, but for the fishing industry as well. Whaling, however distasteful, needs to be reinvented with global resources — not just whales — in mind.