In the following blog post Dan Goodman, Councillor, Institute of Cetacean Research, Tokyo, responds to an earlier post by Greenpeace’s Adele Major in which she quotes John Frizzel explaining why whaling can not be sustainable, click here to read the Greenpeace position.
In this response Goodman puts the case for sustainable whaling and explains the importance of the current research effort in Antarctic waters:
Greenpeace has been misleading the public on issues related to whaling for many years (If Greenpeace told the truth about whaling, The Japan Times, 2nd January 2002). They clearly have an economic interest in continuing their campaign of “hype, half-truths and posturing” as it was described by a former director of Greenpeace International (Nature Vol. 396, December 10/98).
John Frizzel’s arguments are simply more of the same with additional errors of fact and omission. His advocacy is for the most part fiction rather than science.
Frizzel’s argument that because past commercial whaling depleted whale stocks, whaling should never be attempted again ignores the fact that science related to whales and resource management has very substantially progressed in the last 50 years.
His argument also ignores the fact that past whaling was for whale oil which was a commodity valued worldwide whereas current and future whaling is for food for a very limited market. The argument is also contrary to the views of the IWC’s Scientific Committee which developed and unanimously recommended to the Commission a risk-averse procedure for calculating catch quotas for abundant species of baleen whales. Clearly the Scientific Committee, and indeed the Commission itself which adopted the procedure in 1994, were of the view that sustainable whaling is possible.
Frizzel notes that the blue whale is only showing slow signs of recovery from past over-harvesting but he should also have informed readers that data from Japan’s research program is providing important information to explain why this is the case.
Flawed logic also leads Frizzel to conclude that because the IWC has established a sanctuary in the southern ocean, “Japan’s research program is gathering data to set commercial catch limits on a population for which commercial whaling has been forbidden” but he omits the fact that Paragraph 7 (b) of the Schedule to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which established the Southern Ocean Sanctuary includes the words “However, this prohibition shall be reviewed ten years after its initial adoption and at succeeding ten year intervals, and could be revised at such times by the Commission.”
Presentation of data to the IWC from Japan’s research program clearly shows that the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which was established without advice from the Scientific Committee was required for conservation reasons, clearly shows that the sanctuary is not required. If the IWC followed the requirement of the Convention for its regulations to be based on scientific findings the sanctuary would be abolished. In addition, Japan filed an objection to the Southern Ocean Sanctuary with respect to minke whales as is the right of any member of the IWC. The meaning of this in legal terms is that the sanctuary does not apply to Japan.
Frizzel quotes a genetics study by Roman and Palumbi (2003) suggesting that pre-whaling abundance was much higher than previously thought however, he fails to note that this study has been severely criticized in the scientific literature and that in 2004 the IWC’s Scientific Committee agreed that “figures presented by Roman and Palumbi could not be considered reliable estimates of pre-whaling abundance”.
Work by Palumbi and colleagues following the 2004 meeting of the Scientific Committee did not resolve issues raised by the Scientific Committee (IWC/57/REP 1 page 38).
Frizzel also mis-stated the findings of the Scientific Committee concerning recent preliminary and not-agreed estimates of southern hemisphere minke whales when he says that “The new estimates are half the old in every area that has been resurveyed.” The fact is that the estimate for Area VI is higher from the more recent surveys (IWC/57/ REP 1, page 24).
He is, however, correct that the possible reasons for the differences in estimates derived from circumpolar surveys conducted more than 20 years ago and more recent surveys are not yet understood. Factors such as differences in survey design and areas covered, differences in ice and whale distribution and species interactions where increasing abundance of fin and humpback whales may be reducing the availability of krill for minke whales may all be contributing to the difference in estimates of abundance.
On the other hand, data from Japan’s 16 year whale research in the Antarctic (JARPA) which used the same survey method each year shows a stable level of minke whale abundance and there are no indications that biological parameters such as natural mortality rates, pregnancy rates and age of sexual maturity have changed to the degree which would be required to reduce the population by half over the past 20 years.
It also needs to be pointed out that even if minke whale abundance was half of the 1990 estimate of 760,000 animals, the current level of take under JARPA II (the new Japanese research program begun this year) is approximately only 0.02%. Clearly this level of removal is not a conservation concern.
Frizzel states the Greenpeace view that “whaling in all forms must be stopped” because of threats to whales other than whaling. Here again he fails to note that the Revised Management Procedure for setting catch quotas developed by the IWC’s Scientific Committee takes account of uncertainty including uncertainty related to environmental change. His statement that “Expectations for the recovery of whale populations have been based on the assumption that, except for commercial whaling, their place in the oceans is as secure as it was a hundred years ago” is therefore simply false.
Finally, Frizell opines that very little is known about southern fin whales and that most civilized cultures recognize the need to preserve biodiversity and conserve species that are endangered and protected. The fact that little is known about southern fin whales is precisely the reason we will sample a few whales of this species
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Whaling may be for alimited market now, but if it gets a foothold, there will obviously be attempts to enlarge that market, as with any other industry.
No doubt Greenpeace has some interest in maintaining a campaign against whaling, but one could hardly say the whalers and their supporters are without self-interest as well.
I expect it is probable killing a small number of whales (of some species) each year may be sustainable – in the sense of not threatening the survival of that species. However, it is hard to keep it at a small number once it is given the go ahead. It could soon become like many of the other marine industries which run the risk of pushing marine ecosystems to their limits (and clearly have already in some cases).
In addition, the extra argument against whaling is that it almost certainly involves enormous suffering and cruelty being inflicted on the whale. It is reasonable to assume that whales are intelligent, sentient creatures. There is no need to kill them, so it is unjustified to inflict this cruelty.
Of course, there are other animals that are also cruelly slaughtered for food when it is not necessary to do so, but that doesn’t make whaling right, it just makes some opponents of whaling inconsistent (or hypocritical if you want to sound more criticial).
I thought pigs were by far the most intelligent animals, however as we have yet to see the comparative IQ/EQ studies that remains my opinion only.
Equating one self interest with another does not address the fact that Greenpeace deliberately distorted the truth. I thought Democrats slogan was “keep the bastards honest”, so do it.
Depends who the bastards are .. ..
And the right have been distorting the truth for years – never ever a GST, children overboard, WMD – bait, bait .. ..
Yes Phil, it’s a well-accepted ethical position that it’s OK to be unethical if other people are. And of course only the “right” lie. Your comments suggest you’re just a partisan.
It is ???
No – just evening up on Rog so he doesn’t get too flamboyant. Rog lobs an anti-green anti-left about every 2nd post. Talk to him about being partisan.
Given the somewhat successful advertising campaigns to buy “dolphin-safe” tuna, I think that Andrew’s scenarious that whale meat consumptio might increase somewhat optimistic.
Two cultures eat whalemeat – Japansese and Norwegian – and for centuries one suspects.
Europeans seem not to have an aversion to eating horseflesh while we do yet I have not seen an increase in the eating of horsemeat in this country, though I do know that decades ago an Indonesian Restaurant in Kings Cross, run by a Dutch expatriot, was booked by the food police in NSW for using horsemeat.
struth my spilling is atroicious 🙂
Rosehill Ristaffel?
Of course at no time will Phil Done find himself in a postion to properly address the points raised by the ICR, he is unable to be ethical.
Naaa Salamat Makan, no more of course.
Phil Dones predeliction for tilting at windmills makes me wonder if he is don Quixote, Sancho Panza or Dapple.
The best way to serve horse meat is by way of an Australian meat pie; then you have the protection of the authorities.
The Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code Volume 2 defines a meat pie as a pie ‘containing no less than 250g/kg of meat’. ‘Meat ’is defined as ‘the whole or part of the carcass of any buffalo, camel, cattle ,deer, goat, horse, pig, poultry, rabbit or sheep’.
Actually about the only word I will say on this whole thing is quoting Spock reacting with horror in the movie Star Trek IV when told that humans eat whalemeat:
“You eat the flesh of sentient beings????”
Ender has it occurred to you that either Louis or Rog is a sock puppet? Whose hand is the puppet do you think? OK it’s Rog – much more believeable – must say that his impersonation of Louis as the mad scientist crazed with political conspiracy theories is utterly brilliant. Had me fooled.
Frankly given the degree of scepticism on this blog why should we believe the Japanese research. If it were climate research you’d have howled it down by now. Maybe the whales are affected by undersea volcanoes, or solar influences or heat islands perhaps. Do you really know.
Is there an odour of hypocrisy?
You could always prove them wrong P Done, but what would you do with your faith?
Proof denies faith and we need to believe that whales are more than just sentient beings.
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MG/206449~Moby-Dick-Posters.jpg
Plus we have all this merchandise to shift
http://systems.velocityweb.com.au/greenpeace/store/istore.php?mode=lp
It’s not about money is it?
Rog
your link to Greenpeace is interesting – a large number of pop-ups – annoying things – reminds me of other annoying things that pop up, from time to time.
But I had not realised health laws in this country allow horse meat in meat pies.
The ICR post has touched on a point that needs a great deal more emphasis, ie, the stomach contents of whales.
The greens have been flogging the fatuous line that you don’t need to kill a whale to tell how old it is, merely take a skin sample etc. But skin samples will not tell us what the whales have been eating and how this has changed over time. And in the absence of check-out stubs or the whales demonstating enough co-operation with the survey by induced vomiting, then capture and disection is the only way to get this information.
Clearly, what the greens fear most is detailed information on animal health, food supplies, longevity and reproduction. For that might expose their emotive bleating as just that.
Nope I reject all the whale data – it’s fabricated by scientists on big yen salaries and contaminated by influences from undersea volcanoes. The whales numbers are also higher in El Nino years.
Hey is it right that the Japs have whole warehouses full of dead whale that they can’t sell?
Trust a Dutchman to be eating a horse. Yummy. Probably would like to tuck into a nice chunk of Makybe Diva.
D’you mean, Phil, like the Europeans have whole warehouses full of dead cows, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, ducks etc?
So if you reject all whale data then you have squandered any right to take part in an informed, reasonable discussion. Haven’t you?
Dog meat is particularly good for warding off the cold weather. It is widely regarded in China as the key element in the campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria.
In Paris they have special horse meat butchers, boucheries chevalines, with a special sign hanging outside, quite a few near the racetrack at longchamps. It is also eaten throughout Europe. Other butchers specialise in calves, vieux boucher I think.
In South America they eat guinea pigs, its a staple source of protein.
All these blogs seems to be an argument against Greenpeace. The argument should be weather whaling can be sustainable. I agree that Greenpeace should be honest in all it campaigns. They should make clear that they would never support the killing of whales due to ethical reasons. Please don’t get into the trap of an us verses them debate.
Can someone inform me who the “Greens” refers to ?.
People seem to use the term greens as an insult, why ?.
To state that the greens believe something is very misleading. I am concerned about future resources for our increasing population. Does this make me a greenie ?. Is this bad ?. Does everyone who gets labeled as a greenie a liar ?.
Are they 1) the political party, 2) anyone who would like to protect the environment (ecosystems, plants and animals etc) from degradation 3) Animal liberationist who believe it is ethically wrong to kill animals, 4) People that want resources to be protected for future use, 5) or are “greens” anyone who doesn’t agree with
Just using your own proven logic guys ! So therefore you have squandered the right to take part in any climate discussion. Can’t have it both ways.
Well said Michael.
So Rog – you’re the real one and Louis is the puppet – is this correct.
Gotta go boil up a Guinea Pig for lunch. Kids will be upset that Skittles is gone but tough. Neighbours dog tomorrow. Woof !
You dont boil them you roast them – dont you know anything?
Thank goodness the Japanese or Norwegians were not cannibals in the past. However at least there would be no question of sustainability 🙂
So if sustainability is the sole criteria, then yes, why don’t we eat people? Really, I would like to know. Surely people can be harvested sustainably, there are too many already it seems. Particularly mentally retarded adults with a mental age of 7 or less as they’re less intelligent than cetaceans, pigs, dogs, parrots (and perhaps even horses?), so why don’t we eat them? our govt could simply declare that it does not recognise the various international agreements and natiional jurisdictions that touch on this area, and away we go!
As Louis pointed out, Europeans eat horsemeat. In Germany they farm horses for human consumption. Cannibalism is not specifically illegal in Germany either, therefore it is legal. Some people steaks for dinner anyone? eg we could eat cathy as i suspect she may be less intelligent than a roasted guinea pig.
Ok I sense your reluctance as we may exceed sustainable yeilds. Therefore, we’ll kill according to a quota system, and then eat them, meanwhile assessing if our harvest has affected human population levels. As (rog/ian/louis?) suggested we do with the whales, we’ll cull the males as we all know, you don’t need many males to maintain a viable human population. Cathy it seems you’re safe for the time being so help me to ready the harpoons will ya matey?!!!!!!
Wow – I think I’m in love.
I’d gladly die for a night out with “Think”.
you would doubly so if you saw me Phil!! 😛
re: night out, we we could go for a dinner: a nice bottle of red to complement the carpaccio of grain-fed homo sapiens with a delicate lemon myrtle and dog brains coulis. Anyone care to join? (Whale is not on the menu given the IWC’s advice that whales generally haven’t yet recoverd to sustainable harvest levels)
I saw her through a sea of clouded rhetoric. I noticed the subtle way she rounded her argument. Yet her dialectic totally slaughtered (literally) the opposition. The guys teased me about being Done like a dinner but I never thought it would come to this.
Eating their livers with faba beans and a nice Chianti.
All else was meaningless – I ripped my Che Guevara poster from the wall – forget global warming. She was hotter. Just the cetaceans and her was all there was now.
We won’t say adieu my little avenger – we’ll just say goodbye for now.
I hereby refuse to recognize Japanese waterways.
Furthermore, I hereby declare them to be my own.
Any action taken inside my territory will be met with deadly force…
…after which I will “study” my kill then market the meat on supermarket shelves as required by law.
God Almighty, don’t we have another bomb lying aroun somewhere?
Gosh, Think & Mike, do you miss having peripheral vision when your head is wedged up your ass like that? Gives a whole new meaning to one eyed perspective.
Careful Ian – such coarse language that only a ruffian sawmiller would use – remember I have strong feelings for “Think”.
Ian thankyou for that intelligent, insightful and well justified post. Thankyou also for addressing the topic and not the person. I have renewed respect for your ability to reason and to add a meaningful layer to the exchange. I’m almost starting to understand your perspective! I wonder, do you consider yourself exemplar of the intelligent right?
Now, seriously, Think, you are not going to suggest, by way of sarcasm, that your most recent exchanges with Phil were addressing the topic, insightful or adding meaning to the issue, are you?
well Ian, you haven’t yet explained to me why it’s ok to kill and eat whales but not people. Please explain! My parents, the church, school…. no-one explained this to me. Hence my failure to comprehend how anyone who doesn’t eat people can defend the unauthorised, fake research whaling of vulnerable species in an internationally declared whale sanctuary. Are you a cannibal, a hypocrit or a vegetarian?! Meanwhile you’ll excuse me if I indulge in a little fantasy about eating you! I’m sure you’ll need a lot of tenderising & marinating to be palatable….
When the whales themselves, can tap out a response on this blog trail, Think, (is that an oxymoron?) then THEY can explain to us all why they should be treated as humans when they so clearly are not. All you have done is add a new, more extreme rhetorical flourish to the same old false assertions. Get a job.
Ian – I imagine “the whales themselves” would be dismayed at your silly suggestion that they should need to communicate with you by typing. No doubt they would ask you to stick your head in the sea and explain to them via sonar why you want to eat them.
Jennifer’s blog is so full of rhetoric (much of it of the “elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous” variety) that I am surprised that you would have an issue with rhetoric, but then you regularly fall back to personal jibes (get a job? head up your ass (arse!), etc) or claims of “false assertions” when you can’t counter a good point. You could just shut up instead of dragging it into the gutter.
As you presumably know, cannibalism has been a high profile issue of law and debate in Germany in the last couple of years. Having seen the odd doco on surviving cannibal tribes, it is fascinating to understand the logic and motivations of the tribes/culture. (From my recollection) Tribal/cultural cannibalism (as opposed to plane crash survivor cannibalism) is never about sustenance, protein or even a taste for human flesh, but about power/vengeance. There seems to be quite a clear code (amongst the cannibal tribes) of when and why a particular human would be eaten. For Armin Meiwes it was about fantasy, not the need for protein, nor the delusion that it was acceptable because he was intellectually superior to his dinner.
I don’t want to go on and have a debate about cannibalism, but the fact that Think and others bring it up is valid – many points have been made about the intelligence, magnificence, brain size/lobes, sentience, etc of whales (including from ICR’s own puppet Glen Ingwood “whales are magnificent creatures”). They are a different species though, so that makes them fair game for food? Where do you draw the line at what is okay to kill and eat? Our western cultural indoctrination tells us it is okay to kill (humanely – uh, that’s an oxymoron isn’t it – oh, no you need TWO terms for an oxymoron; “kill humanely”) cow, but not to eat humans. Why? Intelligence? Dominance? Genetic programming? Culture? The pro-whaling lobby has tried to defend Japan’s cultural right to eat whale.
Pushed to stand by their politics, many of the pro-whaling lobby here (including Jennifer) have admitted that they find it okay to eat gorilla, panda or whatever cuddly creature, as long as science says that populations are sustainable. I understand the case has been made that 200 whale experts have deemed Japan’s whaling ‘research’ unsustainable. The pro-whaling lobby here have tip-toed around whether they do or don’t give credence to the IWC (as it suits them).
So what are you left with? The pro-whaling position is not supported by science, not by sustainability, it is opposed by the majority of governments. You aren’t even trying to argue that the position is okay because whales (like dogs, pandas, etc) are less intelligent, because that presumably would contradict your Darwinian faith that brain size is a measure of intelligence.
DISCLOSURE: I’m a pescetarian. I wear leather shoes. I have a job. My field of vision is just fine.
It’s unreasonable to assess animal intelligence in terms of traits of modern human societies. It wasn’t that long ago that europeans considered indigenous “savages” to be of inferior intelligence (some still do) because they didn’t display signs of modern ‘civilisation’. Now you’re applying the same test to whales. Animal researchers are starting to make inroads to understanding the different forms that animal intelligence takes (varies by parrots, apes, octopus).
but running with your proposedtest, do chimps deserve to be treated like humans? We have 98.5% identical DNA and they can push buttons on a simple keyboard to communicate. Is it ok to eat chimps, assuming that they’re at sustainable population levels? (Jared Diamond says he’s not aware that anyone has tried cross-fertilisation between a human & a chimp – could we produce fertile offspring?)
One would have thought that Jared Diamond should have asked his mother. Richard, look up a book called “The Man Eating Myth”, forget the author but he makes a good case that canibalism was nothing more than a convenient reinvention of “original sin”, a means by which conquering cultures could demonise the people whose lands, lives and freedoms they were about to take. It seems that in most reported cases the evidence was purely circumstantial and third hand reporting of supposed attributes of the other tribe over the hill.
The test of sentience or intellect is how a species is able to adapt to threats or enhance their survival. Dogs befriended the most effective hunter in the landscape, mankind, and became an ally. That was clever. Horses did the same. And as mentioned elsewhere, Killer Whales did the same at Twofold Bay and shared in the benefits of that co-operation and feasted on the tongues of harpooned whales. They communicated without a common language, that was a sign of intellect. Baleen whales have done no such thing. They have not demonstrated any form of threat assessment or response and have not demonstrated any co-operation with other species nor any rudimentary use of tools. Octopus demonstrate complex problem solving skills in relation to site entry etc but take no part in co-operative activity. They are not human, we eat them. We are capable of imprinting on a number of species in a way that domesticates those species but we tend not to eat the smartest dog breeds, horses or Killer Whales. But 2 billion East Asians eat a less intelligent dog that has been bred for that purpose. And they couldn’t give a proverbial rats arse what less than 20 million Australians think about it. So when all is said and done, if the smartest whales can eat other whales then why can’t we?
If “the test of sentience or intellect is how a species is able to adapt to threats or enhance their survival”, then by the laws of nature all living creatures are sentient and intelligent. The killer whales are recognised as having scavenged from whaling operations, not just at Twofold Bay, but elsewhere. If communicating “without a common language” is a “sign of intellect”, then baleen whales are by your own definition “intellectual”. They have been shown to have their own cultural exchanges based on communication. If co-operation with other species is your measure of intellect, I am sure the honey badgers and black-throated honey guides would be rejoicing at your respect for them. Your weird assessment that they have not “demonstrated any form of threat assessment(?)or response and have not demonstrated any co-operation with other species nor any rudimentary use of tools” is setting your own standards for measuring intelligence. When baleen whales of different species converge at feeding sites, there is the possibility that they are co-operatively hunting. Baleen whales are very hard to study, but then that is yet another thing that you know nothing about Mr Mott. By using non-lethal methods, researchers are gaining a greater understanding of the lives of these animals, including their “intellect”. I dare say they have more reasonable and less human-centric measures for intelliegence than you do.
Ian a genuine thanks for responding with a well-reasoned post (yr snide J Diamond joke aside).
Many mammalian true predators do show an adaptable and ingeneous type of intelligence that humans are capable of recognising without stretching their human-centric view of the world too far. We tend to domesticate pack/herd animals and of course, consider most the intelligence of the animals we get the closest to. We tend not to eat the most intelligent species of these perhaps because they have a higher utilitarian value alive. Orcas (& dolphins) can be approached relatively easily and kept in captivity. Not so the larger cetaceans. There is so much we don’t know about them (eg where do blue whales get to?) that we can’t be too certain about their intelligence, their social structures, breeding habits or their resilience.
Humpback whales songs can last a day, are regionally varied, evolve gradually over time and have a unique personal signature for each whale (it took someone familiar with African drumming signatures to recognise this). They employ rhymes to remember the complex songs. Only rarely observed by humans, Humpbacks co-operate when fishing by blowing bubbles to form a net in which they chase fish to eat. That net is effectively a tool: humpback fishing technology. Who knows what else we don’t know about these magnificent creatures?
If we consider communication, threat response, co-operative activities, technology and adaptability to be signs of intelligence, then bacteria are much smarter than humans. They freely exchange DNA information so they can evolve, globally, in a phenomonally short time (makes the internet seem like a teething ring), they’re ancient, they build incredible cities and they adapt to all kinds of ‘extreme’ environments.
It’s been widely exclaimed on this blog that the anti-whalers should justify their moral position, and they’re branded hypocrits. Why don’t the pro-whalers feel the need to justify their moral position? (eg Why is it ok to raise intelligent pigs in horrible conditions as a foodsource, but illegal to keep a child of equivalent intelligence in a cage that prevents them from turning around or lying down?) Hence I raise the cannibal issue. If it’s ok for humans to eat organisms we consider less intelligent, then I should be allowed to eat dumber people.
im 15 and i belive with alot of confidence thatwhaling should be stopped!!!
Read somewhere the earth will be sucked off by the sun in some 1 million years from now, yeh so it’s going to be hot, damn hot…
At least the whales wont suffer eh.