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| A breaching humpback whale. |
By Bernard Unti
In this final week of May, whales are taking center stage at Anchorage's Captain Cook Hotel, as whalers, whale advocates and the national delegations of more than 70 member nations arrive for the 59th Annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission, set to begin on Monday, May 28.
The meeting will consider whale conservation and management worldwide. IWC 2007 is expected to produce an especially heated sequence of political maneuvers, pitting pro-whaling countries and their allies against the bloc of nations that oppose them.
The bowhead quota for Alaska's Iňupiat and Yup'ik peoples and other aboriginal subsistence whalers is up for renewal, and rumors swirl about backroom bargains in support of the whaling ambitions of Greenland, Iceland, Japan and Norway—who last year managed to gain headway on the longstanding moratorium on commercial whaling.
Out in the ocean not far from the Captain Cook Hotel, the whales are congregating too: orcas, belugas, and humpbacks. They have pods, not delegations. Their maneuvers are physical, not political. They will never visit the hotel shops. They will not read the reports about hunting quotas or infractions. They will not need photo badges, nor attend any of the sessions, open or closed. They will not check their Blackberry and laptop email nervously, incessantly, indiscreetly, as many of the IWC delegates and observers are wont to do.
The Captain Cook is a perfect venue for the annual collision of values and political stratagems that is the IWC. Whales have iconic and literal presence throughout the hotel. Whales are central to Alaska tourism, and the Captain Cook is chock full of cruise-booked tourists about to embark on whale watching excursions.
Near the reception desk hangs a painting of an allegorical sighting of a great blue whale by famed English explorer Captain James Cook's HMS Restoration. A few yards away, visitors can drink and eat at the hotel's Whale's Tail Café, where stained glass and hammered copper whales adorn restaurant partitions and walls. In the hotel shops, visitors can buy a host of whale-themed items. Whales on ties, earrings, and other adornments; whales in books, paintings, and photographs—all offer the buyer the opportunity for symbolic association.
Whales aren't just symbolic objects at the hotel, however, as several stores also offer whale vertebrae and items carved out of whale bones. "Hard product handicraft"—whale bones made to look like whales, and whale baleen decorated with images of whales, other animals, or native Alaskans—is common at these and many other Anchorage shops.
Because these whale products are the result of native handicraft, it is legal to purchase them here, and to transport and possess them in the United States. No products derived from the great whales and certain small cetaceans can be exported, and without necessary permits, neither can products from the smaller cetaceans listed on Appendix II of the Convention on Trade in International Species (CITES). Some shopkeepers let customers know this in advance. Some don't. And CITES isn't like Starbucks, with a permit bar in every town.
With the opening session just several days away, the assembling delegations have been busy, with subcommittee meetings on science, infractions, aboriginal subsistence whaling, humane methods of killing, and IWC finance and administration. Some members are passing the time speculating on likely strategy to be employed by the pro-whaling nations and their opponents, on who will offer the first motion on climate change, or which country will be the first to threaten to leave the IWC.
Out in the ocean not so far from the Captain Cook Hotel, the whales are congregating too.
Bernard Unti, senior policy adviser and special assistant to the president, received his doctorate in U.S. history in 2002 from American University. His book, "Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Humane Society of the United States," is available from Humane Society Press.
