Second Day Brings More Controversy

Tuesday morning marked the start of the potentially contentious issues. On the agenda were the future of the IWC and aboriginal subsistence whaling (see my “calm before the storm” blog for a little background).

The Future

IWC Chair Bill Hogarth led off the day with a presentation of the Small Working Group’s (SWG) progress so far. At a closed commissioner’s meeting on the Sunday before the start of plenary, the Commission agreed by consensus to pass a resolution continuing the SWG for another year. There was a great deal of discussion related to this resolution.

Australia made a proposal that the IWC should be responsible for identifying research priorities that provide information for conservation and management of whales. Their proposal called for all scientific research to be related to these priorities and to use methodology with the least impact on species and populations. Under these conditions, special permit (aka, “research”) whaling would likely not fit these criteria and would, therefore, be eliminated (Australia’s ultimate goal). In an effort to maintain consensus, Australia presented this proposal just to generate discussion and brainstorming, rather than to bring it to a vote. The U.S. followed up by actually supporting Australia’s proposal and stating unequivocally that they oppose special permit whaling. For a few brief, shining moments, I was actually proud to be a U.S. citizen at the IWC! Japan, as would be expected, came out against this proposal and emphasized the need for compromise in the discussions of the IWC’s future.

Many other nations made comments that generally fell along the typical pro or anti- whaling lines. There were some common themes throughout, such as making the process more transparent, involving non-profit organizations, promoting good communication and involving representatives from different geographic, ideological and socio-economic groups in the proceedings. In general, there was support for the resolution to continue the SWG process for another year. After earnest discussion about semantic points in the wording of the resolution, it was passed by consensus.

Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling

The next topic was subsistence whaling, which is whaling by native people for local consumption. The numbers of whales killed in various native hunts throughout the world were reviewed. These hunts include bowheads off Alaska, gray whales off Russia, humpback whales off St. Vincent and the Grenadines and minke, fin and bowhead whales off Greenland. One interesting note is that the Russian Federation continues to document so called “stinky” whales, which are whales that have normal behavior and external appearance, but have a significant chemical smell when cut open. The meat of these animals is inedible and the cause of the odor is unknown. In 2008, ten stinky whales were caught and samples from eight of those whales were sent out for analysis.

The biggest issue under this agenda item is Greenland’s proposal to increase their hunt, which currently includes minke, fin and bowhead whales, to include humpback whales. They propose to take ten humpback whales per year. In exchange, they would reduce their minke catch from 200 to 178 whales. This change would require a ¾ majority vote of the full IWC to pass. Denmark, on behalf of Greenland, made a presentation describing their request and the increased “need” for this whale meat.

There are a number of things that are controversial about Greenland’s aboriginal subsistence whaling program.
a) Greenland states an increased need for whale meat due to a 9% expansion in their human population, but this expansion is in the entire population of Greenland, not just the native community;
b) Meat from a subsistence hunt is supposed to be consumed in the local community. Meat from Greenland’s hunt is consumed locally, sold in open air markets and even packaged and sold to supermarkets;
c) Unlike most subsistence hunts, Greenland specifies its “need” in tonnage rather than number of whales. This is an issue because the conversion factor for tonnage of meat yield per whale has not been officially identified for each species.

This same proposal was brought before the IWC last year and it was voted down due questions regarding the issues above. There was some work in the Scientific Committee to address the conversion factor for meat yield, but nothing has been agreed upon at this point. As you can imagine, there was a flurry of hands waving in the air to make comments on Greenland’s proposal and, again, opinions and remarks fell along typical pro and anti-whaling lines. Anti-whaling nations emphasized the need for an agreed-upon conversion factor before moving forward. Pro-whaling nations had some impressively dramatic speeches about Greenland people going hungry (of course they don’t mention the small cetaceans, seals and terrestrial mammals that are also hunted by Greenlanders). They also emphasized the fact that the Scientific Committee stated that a quota of ten humpback whales per year would not damage the stock.

Other nations were awaiting their turns to speak when the Chair asked to postpone the rest of comments and the vote until Wednesday afternoon. I think he was hoping for one more attempt for the commissioners to come to consensus. Certainly, if this proposal is voted down again, there will be many angry nations and potential implications in the whole cooperative spirit of the SWG process. The U.S. was one of the next nations to speak when we moved on to another topic, so we don’t yet know how they will vote. Last year, much to my dismay, the U.S. voted in favor of Greenland’s proposal to take humpback whales. Their reasoning was that they support the precedent of following recommendations of the Scientific Committee, which in this case stated that the hunt would not negatively affect the population. However, there are likely other underlying reasons for a yes vote. The U.S. is very protective of the Alaskan Inuit hunt and, in my opinion, if they vote against the Greenland aboriginal subsistence hunt they might open the door to attacks on the Alaskan hunt. I will anxiously await the U.S.’s comments and the outcome of the Greenland vote tomorrow.