Minke whale
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WHALERS TARGET THE MINKE
A small whale called the minke could spark heated debates at the
International Whaling Commission meeting this May in Kyoto, Japan.
Norway, Japan, and Iceland stand poised to resume commercial whaling
of this 25- to 30-foot species, which inhabits North Atlantic,
Pacific, and Antarctic waters.
At last year's annual commission meeting, the Norwegian commissioner,
Jan Arvessen, said Norway would resume immediately its scientific
whaling of North Atlantic minkes, after stopping it for one year, and
it also would establish a commercial harvest in 1993.
"In 1992, Norway took 97 minkes for research purposes," says Rebecca
Rootes, a foreign affairs officer in the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. "The United States didn't believe that the
killing of these minkes would contribute either to the stock
assessment or to research needs, but President Bush didn't embargo
Norwegian fishery products. In 1993, Norway has slated 135 minkes to
be killed, in three installments, for research whaling."
At the end of 1992, Japanese whalers set sail for the Antarctic to
kill minkes for scientific purposes, but "we've had no report on the
number killed," says Rootes. At this year's commission meeting, Japan
probably will push for harvesting of Antarctic minkes for both science
and profit. Japan also wants permission for sustenance whaling in its
offshore waters for poor villages. Iceland, which withdrew from the
commission in 1989, is collaborating with Norway, Greenland, and the
Faroes to set up a rival organization to regulate North Atlantic
whaling and seal killing.
The small minke wasn't always a target of whalers. By 1972, years of
commercial whaling had depleted all big species of whales in the
Antarctic. This left mostly minkes but, this time, the International
Whaling Commission set whaling quotas before harvesting began on a
large scale. Then, in the 1985-86 whaling season, the commission's
moratorium on commercial whaling of all whale species officially
began. Japan, Norway, and Iceland, however, used a loophole in the
commission's constitution to conduct small-scale scientific whaling.
After the lethal research, the whale meat was sold as food for humans.
The moratorium has provided some time for the commission's Scientific
Committee to review the status of several stocks of different whale
species. To make stock assessments, the scientists use data from
recent whale surveys, as well as old whaling figures. The prohibitive
cost of large-scale, open-ocean surveys makes this task difficult.
However, "for the North Atlantic minke whales, the assessment has a 95
percent confidence interval," says Rootes. Scientists give as their
best-point estimate 87,000 minkes in the northeastern Atlantic, with a
margin of error ranging from 61,000 to 117,000. Surveys indicate that
minkes number about 760,000 in the Antarctic. In both cases, no one
really knows the actual numbers. Another consideration involves the
minke groups that don't interbreed and must be managed separately.
Three distinct minke stocks may exist in the North Atlantic, but
researchers aren't certain of their geographical boundaries.
"The question of commercial whaling is on everyone's mind," says
Rootes, "but it's unlikely that all the pieces will be in place to
make a determination about it at this year's meeting." Even if a
three-fourth majority of the commission's members vote against any
resumption of commercial whaling in May, some nations simply may
reject the decision, and the commission has no enforcement powers.
Since its first meeting in 1949, the International Whaling Commission
has tried to control a powerful, profitable, multinational industry.
It also has listened to the antiwhaling philosophy of other nations,
some of which have established cetacean sanctuaries in their
territorial waters and now want an international whale sanctuary
established in Antarctica.
With so many differing opinions, the international whaling controversy
promises to continue throughout the 1990s.
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Subject(s): BALAENOPTERA acutorostrata
Source: Sea Frontiers, May/Jun93, Vol. 39 Issue 3, p64, 2p, 1c
Author(s): Schaefer, Faith Sousa
Abstract: Reports that the minke, a small whale, could spark heated
debates at the International Whaling Commission meeting this May in
Kyoto, Japan. Norway, Japan, and Iceland poised to resume commercial
whaling of this 25- to 30-foot species, which inhabits North Atlantic,
South Pacific, and Antarctic waters; Reasons; Details.
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