Whose Whales Are These?

The Australian government and a number of Australian citizens have recently been noisy regarding Japan's plans to extend its scientific research whaling to include fin whales and later, humpbacks, in the Southern Ocean. This is ostensibly because Australians have an allegedly thriving whale watch industry and are afraid that Japan's research would impact the number of animals available for watching, thus damaging the Australian industry's reputation as a good place to see the leviathans. Millions of dollars at stake, and all that.

Australians are in a fix, because they have done no research on "their" whales. And, they can't use the Japanese research as an accurate assessment of the state of whale stocks, because they have already defined themselves as untrusting of Japan's "so-called scientific research'. It is really a shame that Australia has done no research of any kind on the stocks themselves, even though they are dependent on them as income producers through tourism. Australians have not even conducted rigorous "non-lethal" sighting surveys that would at least give them a population estimate of fins and humpbacks with which to compare migrating stocks against future counts after Japan's planned research had been going on for some time. Instead, Australia has merely been profiting (at no cost) from whale stocks that migrate past the southern continent on their way to feeding grounds in the Antarctic. Now we have a recognized situation of increasing Antarctic ice shelf melting, warmer waters, and surely, a changing marine environment for krill, penguins, seals and whales. Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that Australia, of all nations, would already have begun to investigate the state of fish and whales that are impacted by these changes? But no, Japan is the only nation that has been doing significant, peer reviewed scientific research in the Southern Ocean on whales and their ecosystem. Two hundred scientists from thirty nations (Japan included) pour over the data amassed by Japan each year, and the Scientific Committee issues a report regarding the relevance and focus of this research to the conservation of minke whales. Now that Japan's sighting surveys have revealed surprising numbers of fin and humpback whales in Antarctica, these species shall be investigated with the same rigor and the data from that research shall be submitted to the IWC Scientific Committee for its review.

IWMC applauds Japan for sticking with this program and for expanding it as these distinguished scientists see fit. Why would any rational person or body of national officials object to research on whales and other creatures in an ecosystem that is apparently undergoing rapid change? It makes no sense to ignore the warming that is taking place in the Southern Ocean. These are not Japan's whales, or Australia's whales. They are animals that migrate south each Austral summer to feed, and some of them pass through Australian waters to do so. It is in the interest of science that the condition of these stocks shall be examined in an on-going program concurrent with rapid changes in that marine environment. It is time that Australia and other Like Minded nations try to change their positions on scientific research whaling, and contribute something useful to the field, instead of objecting to it as if it were an audacious activity.

Wake up Australia. This is the 21st century!