The arrest of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson in Greenland pending possible extradition to Japan has focused attention on the widely condemned practice of whaling.
A moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 allowed the population to recover after centuries of hunting that had nearly driven it to extinction.
Today, this practice is still allowed in three countries: Japan, Norway and Iceland.
Aside from the moral arguments against whaling, such as those made in campaigns like Watson’s, what is the scientific basis for the arguments for and against the practice?
– ‘Scientific’ whaling? –
In 2019, Japan lifted the International Whaling Commission moratorium and resumed commercial whaling within its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
Japan has been hunting whales for “scientific research” since 1987. According to them, some data could only be collected from dead carcasses.
But the evidence to support this claim was slim, Paul Rodhouse, a member of Britain’s Marine Biological Association, told AFP.
“There appears to be little justification for scientific whaling and little meaningful scientific research,” he said.
A 2016 study published in Marine Policy found that whaling and non-whaling countries published a similar number of scientific papers on whales between 1986 and 2013.
When we look at all the whales captured and compare them with the very, very small number of scientific publications that have been produced, we tell ourselves that it really wasn’t worth it and that the scientific objectives were certainly not the priority of this activity, Vincent Ridoux, a researcher of marine megafauna at the University of La Rochelle in France, told AFP.
There is also a lot of non-invasive research being done on live whales, using increasingly sophisticated technology.
These tools include satellite transmitters attached to the mammals, passive acoustic devices in submarines, satellite imagery, and artificial intelligence.
– Are whales still endangered? –
Overall, the moratorium has proven successful in recovering the whale population.
But there are still large differences between regions and species.
Japan hunts Bryde’s, minke and sei whales and would like to expand the list to include fin whales.
According to the government, the species are “abundant” and it is sustainable to harvest them in limited numbers around Japan.
The Bryde’s minke whale and the common minke whale are listed as ‘least concern’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, but globally the sei whale is considered ‘endangered’ and the fin whales are listed as ‘vulnerable’.
In addition to hunting, whales face other threats, such as collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing nets and rising ocean temperatures.
– Whales and Ecosystems –
“Conserving biodiversity is not just a matter of saving ‘charismatic macrofauna’ but also of maintaining balanced ecosystems for the continued health of nature and people,” Rodhouse said.
When whales are abundant in an ecosystem, “they contribute to the enrichment of the surface layers with mineral salts and mineral elements such as iron,” Ridoux said.
These elements are an important source of nutrients for some organisms.
Because whales breathe at the surface, they excrete a large portion of their food there, providing a food source for marine organisms that live at the surface.
– ‘Disturbing’ development –
In May, Japan launched a new “mother ship” for its whaling fleet, replacing the previous main ship, which was decommissioned in 2023.
Weighing in at nearly 9,300 tons, the Kangei Maru is a significant improvement and has caused considerable concern in the scientific community.
“It is very worrying because it is a large ship, it can sail very far and the operating costs are probably very high,” said Ridoux.
“If you want to use a boat like this commercially, you need large quotas to balance the operational costs. And there has to be a market for that.”
Tokyo argues that eating whale meat is part of Japanese culture and a matter of “food security” in the resource-poor country, which imports large quantities of animal meat.
But the question is whether there is a great demand for the meat in Japan.
Consumption has declined significantly in recent decades to around 1,000–2,000 tonnes per year, compared to about 200 times as much in the 1960s.
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