Chalk one up for the conservationists.
Amid the contentious
56th annual International Whaling Commission meeting in
Sorrento, Italy, where pro- and anti-whaling factions have been
staring each other down over the past three days, the
conservationists won a major battle on Wednesday, July 21, when
delegates passed a resolution recognizing that current whaling
methods are not humane.
The commission passed the resolution, proposed by New
Zealand and co-sponsored by 16 countries, in a 29-22 vote. The
resolution does not officially ban inhumane whaling methods,
such as the grenade-tipped harpoon, but officially recognizes
that:
- Current whaling methods do not guarantee death without
pain, stress or distress.
- The welfare of hunted whales is an issue of international
concern.
The resolution also calls for the IWC to reconvene the
working group, "Whale Killing Methods and Associated Welfare
Issues," which was conspicuously absent on this year's
agenda.
"The resolution is important not only because it officially
recognizes the inhumane nature of current whaling methods,"
says Kitty Block, The HSUS's special counsel for the United
Nations and Treaties section, "but also because it reconfirms
what we already know about the IWC: It's an organization that
address conservation and welfare. This is clearly a cold slap
across the face for Japan, which wants to move the IWC back to
a more primitive time, before the commercial whaling
moratorium."
On the Whalewatch
The Whalewatch
Coalition, a recently formed campaign that boasts more than
140 NGOs from more than 55 countries, has been pushing hard to
highlight the fact that all methods of whaling are inhumane,
and cause whales to suffer—sometimes for a prolonged period of
time. The HSUS is one of the leading NGOs steering the
campaign.
As the Whalewatch coalition points out on its web site, more than 1,400
whales will be killed this year alone, despite the fact that a
ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986. The primary
whaling countries are Norway, which officially objected to the
moratorium and continues to hunt commercially, and Japan and
Iceland, which legally hunt for so-called "scientific
purposes." Conservationists for years have called Japan's
scientific whaling merely a guise for commercial whaling.
But no matter who's doing the killing, a whale's death is
not pretty. The coalition says that the average time for a
hunted whale to die is 2 to 3 minutes, "although some whales
can take up to an hour to die." The coalition's arguments are
more fully revealed in a 144-page report titled, Troubled
Waters: A Review of the Welfare Implications of Modern Whaling
Activities, which was written by acknowledged experts in
the study of marine mammals, including two HSUS staff members,
Kitty Block and Dr. Naomi Rose. The report is available on the
Whalewatch web site.
Split Decisions
Not everything went the conservationists' way on Wednesday,
however. Brazil proposed to create a South Pacific whale
sanctuary, which required a three-quarters majority vote to
pass. The proposal inspired elegant words from a Mexican
delegate who opined: "Our own sanctuary has caused whale
populations to increase, and we enthusiastically support the
work of our brothers."
Unfortunately, the speech wasn't enough. The sanctuary was
defeated 26-21 with four abstentions.
"This was yet another example of how Japan's voting bloc was
in complete lock-step with the island nation," The HSUS's Block
says. "How anyone could think a sanctuary is a bad idea is
beyond my comprehension. But many of these countries are not
voting with their conscience."
Yet what goes around, comes around: Japan's own proposal to
amend the commercial whaling moratorium and kill another 3,000
minke whales in the Southern Ocean sanctuary was roundly
defeated. The vote was 19 for and 30 against.
"The good news is that Japan doesn't have the votes to pass
the pro-whaling proposals it would like," says Block. "The bad
news is that the country has enough votes to block whale
conservation measures. As a result, the IWC gets tied up in
political gridlock. That does not serve the whales in any
way."
Check back daily for updates from
the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting in
Sorrento, Italy.
