In 1993, Michael F. Tillman, Deputy IWC Commissioner for the U.S., speaking at the IWC in Kyoto, said that, because the Congress and the American public oppose whaling, the United States would continue to oppose whaling.  It has now turned out that both premises of his statement are inaccurate. 

In the past four years, there have been no resolutions passed by the U.S. Congress but there have been many letters from Congressmen in favor of whaling to the Administration. Now, a study has shown that the U.S. public would strongly support a regulated harvest as well.  This finding directly contradicts what seems to be as Tillman’s statement reflects, a commonly held assumption about U.S. public opinion on whaling issues. 

The public opinion poll was conducted by Responsive Management, a Virginia-based corporation specializing in public opinion survey research focused on natural resources issues.  Since 1985, Responsive Management has more than 150 general population surveys and 100 focus group studies related to attitude towards natural resources for over 100 organizations.  These include most of the state fish and wildlife agencies in the U.S., several U.S. federal services, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and a number of universities, foundations,and private resource management groups. 

One of the study’s most dramatic findings concerned the low level of knowledge about whales which exists.  The survey found 73% of adults said they knew little or nothing about whales, 26% claimed moderate knowledge while only 2% said they knew a great deal about whales.  There were also some surprises.  7% thought there were no regulations whatsoever on whale harvest and less than 10% said whaling was illegal. 

The fact that many will find the most surprising is that (1) over three quarters of U.S. residents (71%) reported they would support the International Whaling Commission (IWC)  to support the orderly development of the whaling industry and (2) almost as high a majority (71%) said they would support harvesting minke whales.  Only 18% opposed a minke whale harvest. 

Just as significant is the fact that these statistics were reported at a 95% confidence interval.  That means the survey results are accurate within +4% with the 698 interviews made. 

Items of particular interest in these survey results include : 

• When some factual questions were asked, often the highest percentage of people picked the most inaccurate answer because of being misinformed. 
• Opinion about whaling mirrored findings in other wildlife fields.  For example, where asked why they supported minke whaling, the highest approval category was for use as a food source (43%). This is similar to studies on hunting where approval was seen at over 70% when game was used as food. 
• Most of these common assumptions about U.S. public opinion appear to be inaccurate. For example, one of the most common topics in the popular press is cetacean ntelligence yet, even the minority opposed to minke whaling, only one percent even mentioned level of intelligence as a criteria for opposition. 

While the findings of this landmark study are still being analyzed, it seems clear that a great many of the assumptions that have been made about the whaling issue must be reassessed.  As Eugene Lapointe, President of IWMC World Conservation Trust says, Perhaps now the discussion of whaling issues can rise above the rampant disinformation and proceed on a rational scientific level at last .”