The Future
The world's whales have by no means been saved, and the future of whales remains uncertain. Along with the menace posed by the imminent resumption of commercial whaling and illegal drift-nets, whales and marine mammals in general must also endure the less understood threats of ocean-borne toxins.
It was whales that bought conservation into an international arena. Sadly, the 1992 collapse of the moratorium on commercial whaling removed an important pillar from the foundation of the environment movement. The ban (established in 1982) helped protect whales and brought environment issues into public consciousness. Astonishingly, whaling is on the rise in several parts of the world, and quotas are entirely in the hands of the whalers—what the non-whaling nations have to say about it is simply ignored.
Despite protections through legislation, few species are recovering to pre-exploitation levels. The minke whale, currently numbering in the hundreds of thousands in the North Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans, is the latest target for Japanese and Norwegian interests. The minke will continue to be threatened unless the International Whaling Commission (IWC) re-establishes the moratorium.
The North Atlantic right whale may actually become extinct during our lifetimes. The Chinese river dolphin was pronounced extinct this year, and other species that live in rivers near humans are threatened with the same fate.
Creating sanctuaries
Sanctuaries do not counter the justifications for commercial whaling, but they do protect the critical feeding, breeding, and/or calving habitats of endangered marine species. They afford needed relief for exploited stocks. In the absence of a moratorium, individual sanctuaries are a critical part of any reasonable strategy to protect whales and their ecosystems.
Ocean Alliance supported the creation of an Antarctic Ocean sanctuary, as proposed by France to the IWC in 1992 and passed 26 May 1994. The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary has a high proportion of the world's surviving baleen whales.
Alternative research methods
A drawback to the current guidelines for international sanctuaries is that such areas, as defined by the IWC, still allow for limited 'scientific whaling' within their boundaries. Research data from scientific whaling nations is regularly submitted to the IWC Scientific Committee. This research method, however, is simply disguised as an excuse to allow whaling enterprises to continue providing meat to international markets. Ocean Alliance has proven through their invention of benign research techniques, that ‘scientific whaling’ is outdated and unnecessary.
Ocean Alliance has proven through its development of effective benign research techniques, that ‘scientific whaling’ is outdated and unnecessary. Long–term benign research is able to provide the same data on individuals needed to manage whale stocks that scientific whaling provides. Unlike scientific whaling, however, long-term benign research also documents the social and behavioral fluctuations that occur over time. Examining such fluctuations is essential to understanding the overall behavior of a species.
In recognizing that tissue from stranded whales could yield important information on toxin levels and effects, Ocean Alliance supports the establishment of a national tissue bank for marine mammals as provided in the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Act. We continue to support the establishment of standardized stranding protocols in which marine mammal specimens are collected and utilized, and endeavor to strengthen the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, which at present does not adequately address the issue of whale entanglement in fishing gear.
