Help for Whales

Once every 17 minutes, a great whale is killed, its back blown open by a grenade-tipped harpoon, its blood spewing into the ocean. The chief purpose: the manufacture of cosmetics, margarine, transmission oil and pet food.

To regulate the slaughter, the 14 nations of the International Whaling Commission* meet annually. For the most part, they listen to the Japanese and the Russians, who account for almost 90% of the whales killed every year, explain why they have a right to "harvest" yet more of the world's largest animals. At this year's meeting in London, however, the U.S. pushed hard for a ban on all whaling. The result: the most rancorous conference in the I.W.C.'s 27-year history -and a possible reprieve for whales.

The great, gentle creatures need it. Of an estimated original population of some 4.4 million whales, no more than a few hundred thousand are left. Five species (blue, humpback, gray, bowhead and right) have already been so widely hunted that further killing is forbidden. Fin whales are at the danger point. Only sei, minke and sperm whales are still abundant enough to exploit -and their numbers are rapidly dwindling.

Unhappy Club. U.S. delegates started their offensive by challenging the whalers' self-serving estimates of remaining supplies. Says Dr. Lee Talbot, the U.S.'s chief scientific representative: "For the first time the I.W.C. recognized the high degree of unreliability of the basic information on which quotas were determined." Then the meeting turned to the business of setting more realistic quotas than last year's total of 38,600. That meant politics.

"Whales come under no nation's exclusive national jurisdiction and as such are an international trust in which all nations should have a voice," argued Robert M. White, U.S. commissioner to the I.W.C. Citing the overwhelming vote to end whaling at last year's U.N. environmental conference in Stockholm, he called for a ten-year moratorium to allow whale herds to regenerate. The proposal won eight votes. Though a 75% majority (eleven votes) was needed for the measure to be enacted, the Russians and Japanese were shocked. "Suddenly," says Talbot, "the I.W.C. ceased being a happy club for whalers."

Goaded by U.S. arguments, even the minor whaling nations -notably Norway, Iceland and South Africa -turned against Japan and the U.S.S.R. The quota for Antarctic fin whales was cut by 25% (to 1,450), and hunting them will be banned in 1976. The rules on Antarctic sperm whales were changed by dividing the ocean into regions; instead of killing virtually all sperm whales in a herd, whalers now can catch only a portion of their quota in any one region, then must move on. On minke whales, even the Russians opposed the Japanese and voted to hold the quota to 5,000 instead of increasing it to 8,000.

Economics, as well as conservationist zeal, explains the changes. As the number of whales gets smaller and smaller, the cost of hunting them gets bigger and bigger. Russia and Japan alone can afford ocean-based whaling fleets, complete with spotter aircraft, factory ships, tankers and fast, sonar-equipped catcher boats. Moreover, the market for whale products is shrinking as cheaper substitutes are developed. The Japanese justify their enormous catch (14,477 whales last year) by saying they need the meat to feed their people, but in fact whale meat represents less than 1% of their protein diet. The Russians have an even weaker argument; much of their whale meat is sent to fur farms to feed minks and sables.

Both nations can officially disregard I.W.C. quotas if they announce such a decision before October. But that seems unlikely, for it might well lead to an embarrassing vote of censure by the U.N.

* The U.S., Japan, U.S.S.R., Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Panama.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.