AWI-1980-IR.Pdf
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IOMAIO EO AIMA WEAE ISIUE .O. x 60 Whntn, .C. 2000 lA.Spt. l. 2, . "No" says Canada to a whaling moratorium n Cnd d th? 80 h bn bd r fr th hl. lln th prr was 14 Yes, 6 No. Had Canada voted d n , th r tn f th Intrntnl Whln the other way, the figures would have Cn —hld n rhtn, Enlnd, l 226—prvd read 15 Yes, 5 No—so achieving the b llrnd dppntnt. t th ddt vnt f th 3/4 majority which the IWC requires to tn, nd th n hh t nrd nrvtnt, make quota changes. Thus Canada's No spelled Yes to the question wheth- th l b nl vt f th prpl fr rtr n th er sperm whales in large numbers lln f pr hl. h vlln f th p nn (1,320 in the coming season) should hln ntn: Cnd. continue to be killed for their sperm oil, a substance for which wholly adequate Over the years Canada's voting rec- Canada voted Yes and supported the substitutes now exist. ord on moratorium issues has been proposal with passion and eloquence. Why did Canada act this way? Can- peculiar —to put it kindly. Since 1973 Last year, 1979, a similar proposal was ada's government-appointed advisory there have been several moratorium put to the IWC. Canada abstained. body, the Ctt n Whl nd votes at the IWC. And since then a This year Canada voted No to that Whln, had recommended that number of countries have moved from proposal and No again to the call for a Canada should support ll morato- the No camp to the Yes. Canada alone ban on the killing of sperm whales, the riums scheduled for debate at the IWC has moved in the opposite direction. most hard-pressed of all the whales still meeting. The Canadian cabinet vetoed In 1973 a total moratorium on ll commercially hunted. this. It instructed the Canadian Com- commercial whaling was proposed. The vote on the sperm whale ban missioner, Mr. Malcolm Mercer, to vote in accord with the IWC Scientific Committee's recommendations— except where they were equivocal. In those instances, the cabinet said, he should support those scientists press- ing for a more conservationist position. The Scientific Committee's Report states that some scientists favored a sperm whale moratorium on the grounds of inadequate data and a poor "biological model." Other scien- tists were against, arguing that uncer- tainty varied and that a blanket mora- torium was therefore unjustified. However, despite this divergence of opinion, the Scientific Committee rec- ommended zero quotas in two out of three areas in which sperm whales are 1-runted. For the third area, the North Atlantic fished by Icelandic and Span- ish whalers, the uncertainties were so great that the Committee simply urged that the average catch of recent years ntrtr td th l tn f th IWC drtz th rl f th nn ntn should not be exceeded. —Sth Afr, r, USS, pn, Kr, Cnd, Spn, Chl, nd Ilnd—h vtd nt rldd rl hln rtr. pht b hn . nt. Cntnd n p r t e Waig Commissio— ow i woks h Intrntnl Whln because IWC quotas have to be n bhd Cn, brn n 48, t agreed by a 3/4 majority, the whaling vr r t r n hln nations—though in a minority—can U.S. n fr t rrt t fr th flln 2 prove and do prove hard bargainers. ldrhp nth: h n t ll, ht In short, the New Management Pro- p nd hr. Otnbl th cedure has brought few changes. Poli- Most endangered of all whales on IWC xt t "nrv" hl tics still dominate. True, the overall which IWC sets a quota is the bow- ppltn tht hlr quota drops year by year. But while head, a species decimated by com- prpr. In th t h fld d this downward trend is partly due to mercial whalers in the 19th Century ll. h hln ndtr conservationist pressure, it is chiefly and still killed by Alaskan Eskimos us- n n t dth thr. ing a curious weaponry manufactured IWC IE - U in Pennsylvania which exactly repli- Far from conserving whales (if only cates that used by the Yankee whalers for the sake of the whaling nations), 0 Whln tn who undermined the species' sur- the IWC has presided over the de- rzl Sth Kr vivability. Chl r struction of the great whales to the nr r Nemesis of U.S. leadership in the point of "commercial extinction." As Commission is the conflict between Ilnd Spn their populations have collapsed, so pn USS the Scientific Committee's repeated the industry—through the IWC—has recommendation of a zero quota on striven to stay afloat by switching at- 4 nWhln tn bowheads and the demands of the Arntn On tention to the lesser whales. Minke Eskimos, backed up by court chal- Atrl Shll whales were only marginally exploited lenges for the right to take numbers Cnd Sth Afr until recently. Now they are the prime rn Sdn greatly exceeding those killed in the target of the whalers' harpoons. Mx Stzrlnd 1940's, 50's and 60's. A more rational corrective to the Conservationist concern, directed at thrlnd UK gross overhunting of the past lies in the lnd USA U.S. Commissioner Richard Frank, IWC's so-called New Management was expressed succinctly in the foot- Procedure which lays down certain due to the continued failure of the high words "No Bowhead Trade-Off' rules to make the recommendations of IWC to "conserve" whale populations. which demonstrators outside the IWC its scientists more "scientific." This is a Continued whaling will lead only to meeting attached to "Flo," a 40-foot great step forward—in theory. the death of whales and whalers. But balloon in the shape of the whale that In practice, however, the political while the whaling industry is past sav- has haunted IWC meetings for the make-up of the Scientific Committee ing, the whales are not. Not yet, not past four years. The phrase refers to plus the shortage of hard data too quite. A moratorium could just save the fact that Japan and Russia always often make for confused and flabby the whales. Nothing less will do. We support the United States in getting a recommendations. Presented with must all start working now to make quota on bowheads for Alaskan Eski- ambiguous advice, Commissioners next year "The Year We Saved the mos, while U.S. leadership in the can interpret it as they will. And Whale." Commission has slackened since 1977 when the bowhead issue first came to a head. In that year the Commission voted a zero quota, and lawyers for the newly formed Alaskan Eskimo Whaling this year for a quota of 10 humpback Commission fought to force the whales for Greenland fishermen. United States to file an objection to the Without the U.S. vote, this quota IWC decision. The issue was carried all would not have been approved by the the way to the Supreme Court. Al- Commission. though they lost the legal battle, Canada does not permit Canadian counsel for the Eskimos has heavily in- native peoples to kill bowhead whales. fluenced the actions of the U.S. Com- However, she unilaterally set a quota missioner. The Commission narrowly of 40 beluga whales in the Cumber- escaped adjourning with no quota on land Sound area, despite the fact that bowheads this year—the most dan- IWC's Scientific Committee recom- gerous possible result for these endan- mended a zero quota for these whales. gered whales. Finally, a three-year Canada's rationale on this matter is quota, which represents a small reduc- bizarre. In a vehement speech, Cana- tion from the current quota, was voted: dian Commissioner Mercer asserted 45 bowheads landed or 65 struck and that beluga whales and narwhals are lost. not whales and, therefore, must not be vl f th bhd under IWC control. Despite a scholarly presentation by Sweden's Alternate fr th nrvtn t bttl Srtr f Cr hlp M. Kltz fr th nxt thr r hld Commissioner, Mrs. K. Mannheimer, nd nd Chrtn Stvn d th pbl rrtn f the Commission did not include belu- l tn f th IWC. th r tht U.S. ldrhp fr th hl. gas and narwhals in the IWC schedule. trn U.S. ldrhp rtl t th It should also make possible a The struck-and-lost rate for these small nrvtn f th rld hl. change in the embarrassing U.S. vote whales in the aboriginal fishery is high. pht b nld . ll 2 n n prttn fr Cnr Since late in the nineteenth century, the bulk of wildlife conservation in America has consisted of the propaga- tion of the 13 so-called "game" spe- cies, primarily deer and ducks. To pro- vide prime habitats for these few species, millions of acres of forest have been bull-dozed, burned or flooded, destroying the habitats of all other animals, e.g., chipmunks, frogs, turtles, snakes, and field mice, with fledgling birds and newborn mammals especial- ly vulnerable. The effect of these manipulations on such species is vir- tually unknown. But wildlife conservation is about to take a step forward in this country. Congress has passed a sort of Equal Opportunity Act for nongame wildlife, ll fr pn hr "The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980." While the funding d rd hp authorization is small compared with expenditures for game species, past Untl rntl, th brbrt f lld prdtr "ntrl"— "game favoritism" will nevertheless be brnn, htn, trppn nd pnn f t nd thr slightly diluted.