Japan Remains Determined to Kill Whales

In a predictable move that would bring CITES directly into conflict with the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Japan has proposed that most of the northern hemisphere population of Minke whales (Baleanoptera acutorostrata) and the western North Pacific population of Bryde's whales (Balaenoptera edeni) be down-listed from Appendix I to Appendix II, enabling international trade under certain conditions.

Norway presently kills around 400 Minke whales a year under a reservation to the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling. It has just begun selling the meat to Iceland and would like to sell to Japan. Japan is increasing its "scientific whaling" kill of Minke whales in the North Pacific this year from 100 to 150.

This is the fourth CITES meeting in a row where Japan has presented these two whale down-listing proposals. They were rejected at the three previous meetings. With strong opposition by the Secretariat of CITES, it is expected that they will fail again. Japan wants to evade the current moratorium on commercial whaling within the IWC by circumventing the rule through another forum. To its credit, CITES has seen the ploy for what it is and has refused to take the bait, despite a lot of thundering rhetoric. Instead, CITES has held that it is the IWC that has the principal responsibility for whales and whaling, and that the trade in whale meat from species protected by the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling should be prohibited.

The current estimates of northern hemisphere populations of Minke whales include approximately 25,000 in the Sea of Okhotsk; 112,000 in the Northeast Atlantic; and 28,000 in the Central North Atlantic. Bryde's (pronounced brutus) whales are not as well known but are considered a depleted species, having been hunted relentlessly by commercial whalers prior to the IWC moratorium. Japan has been killing 93 Bryde's whales a year over the last two years as part of its "scientific whaling" in the North Pacific and selling the meat domestically. One concern is that this species of whale tends to accrue in population very slowly, with each female producing, at best, one calf every two years.

Part of the argument within CITES concerns the "Revised Management Scheme" (RMS) that is working its way slowly through the IWC. The RMS is a calculation intended to include all available information about whales and produce a number of individuals that can die at the point of a harpoon each year without collapsing the population. Many groups, such as AWI, and the strongest whale-defending nations, such as Australia, want no RMS at all because it is merely a plot to pave the way for the resumption of commercial whaling. Japan is arguing for a very lax RMS, with the weakest possible international oversight on anti-cheating controls such as DNA databases, which track the geographical origin and species of whale meat sold.

Japan complains that the moratorium on commercial whaling was to last only until a new killing scheme (the RMS) was completed, and that CITES should take the reins because the IWC is broken. But a careful reading of the moratorium on commercial whaling the IWC adopted in 1982 shows that a comprehensive assessment was to be conducted on the effects of the moratorium in order to demonstrate whether any of the depleted whale populations have responded to less killing. This assessment has not been done.