Hi Jennifer,
Unfortunately a fourth western gray whale has died after becoming entangled in a fixed fishing net off the coast of North Eastern Japan:
http://david-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/2007/01/another-western-gray-whale-entanglement.html
Regards,
David.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Happy New Year David.
In your blog post you mention your concern about the entangled Western Gray Whale as it is endangered. I am wondering about the word “endangered”. For example, the fin whale is classified by the IUCN as endangered, and yet the Japanese are right now killing 10 of them, and at the end of this year will target 50.
Is the definition of ‘endangered’ that you use purely your own, or are you referrng to the IUNC listing, and if so, are you referring to stock numbers to draw a comparison between say 100 Western Grays and ??? southern fins?
The High North Alliance website has this to say about fin whales and the use of the classification ‘Endangered’…
‘The attempted justification for the allegation that Iceland harvests endangered fin whales is based on the IUCN Red List definition of the fin whale species as endangered. It is essential to note that this listing applies to the species worldwide, not to separate regions or to biological populations.
When applied at national or regional levels, IUCN notes that “it must be recognized that a global category may not be the same as a national or regional category for a particular taxon (species)”, thus regional populations may be either less or more threatened than the global assessment.
The IUCN listing is mainly based on the status of fin whales in Antarctica. In the justification for the listing, IUCN writes: “Nearly three quarters of a million Fin Whales were reportedly taken in the Southern Hemisphere alone between 1904 and 1979. (…) Fin Whales are rarely encountered today in those areas of the Southern Hemisphere where they were taken in large numbers. (…) [T]he greatest decline was in the Southern Hemisphere, which had the largest original population.”
It is because of the historic over exploitation in the Southern Hemisphere that the IUCN made its classification: “The species was classified as Endangered on the basis of an estimated decline of at least 50% worldwide over the last three generations (assumed generation time was 20-25 years).”’
BTW, You are right the Western Grays do not migrate to Mexico.
Big oil, big whales and big problems.
” The loss of one of the reproductive females could cause the population to spiral into extinction”.
One article on the critically endangered gray whales stated that ” Putin had provided help to the gray whales…”
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e88fc000-f6c6-413e-a2a7-8f7bcba10e57
Seems though like it is a power struggle between Gazprom ( the world’s biggest gas supplier) and Shell???
Shell has made distasteful comments on the enviro problems surrounding the Sahkalin project like ” the problems are exaggerated etc.”
Seems also like ” the world opinion” should focus on fishing nets in northeast Japan re the gray whales and not only on ” big oil”.
Thanks David for posting this info from Japan.
Happy New Year to you too, Travis. I trust you are having a nice summer.
I’m not totally sure that I understand what you are getting at, so I will take a few guesses:
1) The definition of “endangered” as applied to this entangled whale is presumably the the FAJ’s definition (not mine – when I say endangered I am usually using the plain old English dictionary meaning, not the IUCN’s criteria or whatever). However, on this occassion I think the plain old dictionary definition and the FAJ’s classification reconcile perfectly.
I was not refering to stock numbers to draw any comparison with the WGW and southern hemisphere fin whale stock(s? – I’m looking to JARPA II for elucidation of that topic). In fact I do not see that I mentioned stock numbers all, nor fin whales.
Perhaps the original article text and my translation of it may have caused some confusion for globally minded readers, such as yourself.
Firstly, the article refers only to “gray whales”. The article author (not to mention Mr Yamada from the National Science Museum) may not be aware of the distinct western and eastern gray whale stocks. The only gray whale that you would see in the waters off the coast of Iwate, under normal circumstances is one from the western stock.
Secondly, I won’t go into the linguistic details of translating Japanese into English, but the FAJ was not not actually directly quoted as saying “The gray whale is an endangered species”, they said “[it] is an endangered species …”. The article doesn’t state exactly what the [it] is that they are refering to, but given the prior reference to the WGW population estimate of around 100 whales, that is my guess (I might have said “western gray whale” in my translation, rather than simply “gray whale”, although that would be out of line with the rest of the article text).
Best regards,
David
Ann,
Besides the oil project, the irony of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd “hunting” for the JARPA fleet in the Antarctic at the same time as this unfortunate entanglement was not lost on me either. I’ve not seen the news reported in the western media yet, so I’m glad that I could bring it to your attention.
With similar problems with entanglements with the Right whale in the USA, I hope scientists from both nations (and other parties interested in constructive discussion) can get together and find a way forward in both of their respective situations.
Whoops – I just doubled-check the original Japanese again, and in fact the word the FAJ used to describe the whale is best translated as “rare species”, as opposed to “endangered”.
Thanks David. I can imagine it wouldn’t be too easy translating it all.
Read this surprising news in Norwegian paper Fiskeribladet this morning ” Minke whale downlisted from the IUCN Red list”.
It is on a list now called ” least concern”
I don’t know yet if the listing only concerns the Northeastern Atlantic Minke whale population .
To be continued….
Anyway , this seems to have importance re trade in minke whale products…
Rough translation from Norwegian paper Fiskeribladet on the downlisting of the North Atlantic(?) minke whale stock.
I have been in contact with the journalist who wrote this article and he stated that his article was only about Norwegian whales.
” The downlisting of the minke whale will make it easier in the future for trade in minke whale products and as well increase the acceptance for Norwegian whaling” states Rune Frövik , from the High North Alliance.
This downlisting was made after an IUCN meeting in San Diego last week. The minkes are now categorized as ” least concern”. This is a phase in the ” normalization” process continues Frövik.
Don’t need to translate any more! News from the HNA:
http://www.highnorth.no/read.asp?which=375
Hi Ann,
Our understanding is that the “widespread and abundant” Least Concern classification applies to minke whales globally (both Balaenoptera acutorostrata and Balaenoptera bonaerensis).
Rune Frøvik, High North Alliance
I hope someone ate the whale.
And now that Greenfarce have posted a US$25,000 reward for the co-ordinates of the Japanese fleet, lets hope the Yakuza boys collect the reward and are there waiting for the ultimate reality TV.
Where do you live Ian? I’ll pass on those co-ordinates.
Aah Ian, it’s Sea Shepherd that has asked for the coordinates…. btw the NZ Air Force know the coordinates, they have documented a part of the hunt, but it seems like they don’t want to pass on the coordinates to Greenpeace….
Hi Rune,
Thanks for the clarification….actually methink this is bad news for Greenpeace right now when they are in the Southern Oceans… but I’m glad that some species have recovered and can be downlisted, something I know that the Norwegians have been fighting for .
This is also good for the IUCN,which in some cases have been blamed that the listing of whales is politically motivated…
This downlisting indicates that the IUCN is flexible and I also believe this is good for the polar bear situation ( indicating that the IUCNs decisions are based on science).
Ha det fint!
To some Aussie,
I heard from an Australian that that you have killed lots of whales in the past ( for oil) but you never ate them, is this true???
That makes sense. The IUCN’s 2003 publication “Dolphins, Whales and Porpoises” says “The Antarctic minke whale may be the most abundant baleen whale species today”, so I would have assumed that they’d be downlisted if the common minke was.
This is useful PR material for the whaling nations. Norway and Japan have both been hunting them for ages, and yet here we have the IUCN is downlisting them.
… that’s not a suggestion that anyone start hunting western gray whales though, naturally 🙂
Just as well you cleared that up for us David. You wouldn’t want us to think of you as a heathen hey? 🙂
Travis,
I’m frequently surprised.
Regards,