New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter needs some lessons in mathematics. In an interview on Radio New Zealand on 19 July, he claimed that the numbers of ultra-abundant minke whales "are still much lower than they were in the past."

Most of the world's minke whales are in the Antarctic, where the IWC calculated a population of 760,000 after a twelve year sighting and study program. The population of minke whales in the same region was around 80,000 a hundred years ago, a fact documented in a new book published by the Japan Times entitled "The History and Science of Whales" by Masayuki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki.

Minkes were not hunted for oil like the larger whale species and their numbers grew as other populations fell. Still, Mr. Carter went on to claim that, "whether or not they range from moderately well-recovered to extremely rare, [minke whales] need to be preserved for their biodiversity value." Given the relatively high reproductive rate of minke whales, a quota of 2,000 - 4,000 minke whales could be safely and sustainably harvested from the Antarctic each year, without damaging biodiversity. Do the math, Mr. Carter.

• The Humane Society of the United States, an animal rights group that opposes all commercial whaling, alleged at a 19 July press conference that whales are not a factor in depleting world fisheries. In a paper entitled "Competition between Marine Mammals and Fisheries: Food for Thought", Kristin Kaschner, a Ph.D. candidate, admitted that marine mammals consume more than fisheries catch but said they "mostly eat things we don't catch in places we don't fish." However, the report does show an overlap between marine mammals and fisheries in the north Pacific and north Atlantic, which are the areas of principal concern for Japan, Norway and Iceland.

• The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) appears to have become an agency of the Australian government. The animal rights group's brochure, "The Growth of Whale Watching Tourism in Australia" was distributed by Australia as IWC/56/16 Agenda Item 12. While the report and its foreword by David Kemp, Australia's Minister for the Environment, attributes the survey results only to "whale watching", the tourism survey questionnaire that forms the basis of the report (and appears as an Appendix) asks about "whale and dolphin watching". Titled "Whale and Dolphin Watching Operator Survey Form: April 5 2004", it goes on to refer to whale/ dolphin watching a further 16 times, asking questions about the number of people undertaking tours and how much they spent.

• Whalewatch, a coalition of animal rights groups that describes itself as "unprecedented", continues to tout its May 2004 report "Troubled Waters", which argues that all whaling is cruel and should be stopped. While the IWC's role is to establish a management system for sustainable whale harvests, Peter Davies, spokesman for the group, has said: "Whether it is one whale or a thousand, whaling is simply wrong on cruelty grounds alone." The objective of the celebrity-endorsed group is to "maintain the moratorium on commercial whaling" whatever the abundance of different whale species.