Halfway Through the Meeting

Wednesday session started with statements from NGOs (non-governmental organizations, such as the ACS). NGOs are typically more involved in international meetings such as this one, but for quite a while they have had little to no voice at the IWC. During the 2008 meeting, NGOs were given the opportunity to speak once during the meeting for a limited period of time. The same opportunity was afforded during this year’s meeting. Six organizations, three pro and three anti whaling, were allowed to speak for five minutes each. The three statements from anti whaling groups were written ahead of time and signed on by virtually all anti whaling organizations, including ACS.

The three anti whaling representatives were the Animal Welfare Institute, Humane Society of the United States and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. They condemned research and small type coastal whaling, supported action by the IWC to promote whale watching and research global climate change, and requested increased NGO involvement in the IWC.

The three pro whaling representatives were the International Transport Workers (Japan), Association of Traditional Marine Mammal Hunters of Chuktoka (Russian natives) and Te Ohu Kaimoana (New Zealand natives). The first speaker was a crew member on a Japanese research whaling ship and he addressed safety at sea, condemning the aggressive actions of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The second two speakers defended the native right to hunt whales and encouraged the IWC to compromise to move the organization forward.

Scientific Committee Reports

Next the Scientific Committee (SC) Chair presented a summary of the climate change subcommittee meeting held in February. The recommendation from the committee was that climate change may have significant impact on cetaceans and should be taken seriously. Many nations spoke up at this point to support work on this important issue. There is going to be a draft resolution presented later in the week about climate change, so this agenda item was left open.

The next issue was toxins in whale meat. Several countries expressed concern about the levels of mercury and PCBs in whale meat. Japan had a great quote about whaling nations (Iceland, Norway and Japan) having the longest life expectancy of any countries in the world. The conclusion seemed to be that monitoring this meat was a role of individual nation’s government.

The SC then discussed whale watching; in the coming year they are going to review the possible impacts of whale watching on cetaceans. Many nations spoke up in support of the non-lethal, sustainable “use” of whales. Several Caribbean nations voiced the concern that if whaling efforts shifted to whale watching, that the profits go back into the local communities.

Research Whaling Review

Next the SC presented the results of their review of special permit, or “research,” whaling. The review process was changed last year, so that the whaling proponent is less involved in the review, making it a more unbiased assessment. This year, the SC focused on JARPN II, Japan’s research whaling program in the North Pacific. The SC recommended that JARPN II identify more short term goals that could be used in future reviews to monitor progress. The SC found much of JARPN II’s data to be valuable contributions to science; one exception was their sperm whale take. The sample size was so low for this species that no conclusions could be drawn from the data. The SC recommended an analysis of lethal versus non-lethal research. They also concluded that the whale stocks involved in this hunt were not negatively impacted, except for potentially sei whales that are poorly understood. There is concern about the J stock of minke whales, but the SC found that most of these animals were taken through bycatch in fisheries and not through research whaling.

Once the SC finished its report, many nations spoke up to condemn research whaling. The overall theme of these comments was that most of what was learned through this research could be learned through non-lethal techniques and that the amount of information garnered from this hunt does not warrant the thousands of whales killed. At the end of the discussion, Japan commented that they were pleasantly surprised how unbiased the review was and were happy to have real scientific discussion with the “able scientists” of the SC.

The remainder of the meeting was an extensive (or seemingly never ending) discussion about safety at sea. The agenda item opened with Japan giving a presentation about the aggressive, life threatening attacks on their whaling ships by the Sea Shepherd in Antarctica. Once their presentation was over, almost every nation (that’s 85 nations!) in the Commission spoke to condemn these dangerous activities. Many nations also pointed out that the IWC is not the forum to address these issues; they need to be addressed with the International Maritime Organization.

Greenland Update

Although there was a huge amount of behind-the-scenes activity from commissioners and NGOs, the issue of Greenland’s proposed subsistence whaling quota was pushed until Thursday. The IWC Chair urged the Commission to make this decision by consensus and not require a vote, but some nations (most notable the EU) were blocking the proposal. Partway through the day, Greenland amended their proposal to be ten humpback whales just for 2010 (previously it had been ten per year). NGOs were lobbying commissioners, commissioners were meeting behind closed doors and numbers were being thrown around. As of this moment (Thursday morning), the latest word is that the EU will not support a take of ten humpback whales, but may support one of only six for one year. There is a closed door commissioners meeting this morning, so we will see if they have come to consensus on this issue or it will have to go to a vote as it did last year.