Presidential Politics & Short Memory Mark U.S. Protest Of Japanese Whale Research

Lausanne, Switzerland - 30 September 2000: Election Year Politics and a collective memory short on recollecting its own government's call for "more research" characterize the Clinton-Gore Administration's belligerent posture towards Japanese whale research efforts, according to Eugene Lapointe, former chief conservation official of the United Nations' Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"President Clinton's threatened trade sanctions against Japan for collecting research data on Bryde's and sperm whales reflects nothing more than made-for-media campaign hype prompted by his Political Party's desire to keep control of the White House in his nation's upcoming Presidential elections," said Lapointe, former CITES Secretary General and president of the IWMC- World Conservation Trust. "It's the cheapest form of electioneering. It threatens the animals and it threatens much needed research even the United States claimed is vital to the success of a global whale management plan."

Claims by the U.S. government that Bryde's and sperm whales are "endangered" have no basis in scientific fact. Worldwide estimates of sperm whales put that species in the two million bracket while some 50,000 to 80,000 Bryde's whales thrive in the planet's oceans.

The United States is among the most vocal nations at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) continually bemoaning the lack of data on whale stock numbers. Further, the U.S. cites that lack of research as the reason for its role in the two-decade delay in implementing a whale management plan.

Japan is one of the few nations providing sound scientific research to fill that void. Rather than encourage, support and congratulate Japanese scientists, the Clinton White House fires off bellicose condemnations and continues to block progress toward an international agreement on whale conservation.

"For an Administration that prides itself as a champion of the environment, the U.S. position makes no sense. Ignorance is the greatest threat to whales and to all nature's resources," said Lapointe.�