It's stretching credibility to argue that Japan's whaling programme really is for scientific research purposes.

I can't see how killing 1000 whales can provide much, if any, data on population dynamics. Especially when there are such advanced techniques for monitoring populations pretty much non-invasively using electronic tags and taking DNA or even dung samples.

Aside from the fact Japan barely maintains the pretense that they're gleaning much new data from the JARPA programmes themselves. Where are all the publications in international peer-reviewed journals if they are?

Surely it's sensible to take a wait-and-see approach before - and if - commercial whaling is resumed. It's just a few decades since many whales were teetering on the brink of extinction; they have lengthy generation times and we don't understand enough about how their populations will recover over time.

I agree that the IWC as it is can't go on however... it's just a renewed slanging match each year. Something has to give.

Useful data most certainly can and is being obtained through lethal research methods. The data obtained through the JARPA programme has been made available through the IWC scientific committee's data availability protocol, and the data is being used in analyses by both Japanese and non-Japanese scientists. The JARPA programme also employs non-lethal techniques where those have the power to provide information that lethal methods can not. But there is a limit to what whale dung and DNA can currently tell us. One of the most important pieces of information obtained through lethal methods is whale age. Australian scientists are currently attempting to develop a non-lethal method of determining whale age using telemeres, but despite widespread media coverage the method is still yet to even be completely developed and tested, let alone acknowledged as best practice. In such cases, lethal methods are reality, equivalent non-lethal methods remain fantasy. At the end of the day, information obtained through the JARPA programme is being used by the IWC's scientific committee in it's ongoing assessment of Antarctic minke whales. This speaks for itself.

Humpback whales have been protected since the 1960's - 40 years of protection now and Japan is only just starting to take an interest in them. Is this not "wait-and-see" enough? Furthermore the idea of commercial whaling is not to deplete populations. The idea is to take a conservative number only, such that the population can continue to recover, or if already recovered will otherwise be maintained at a high, productive level of abundance.

I think we come back to the core issue: some people don't like the idea of others killing whales and benefiting from them as we do with tuna and cows. Others do like the idea and hope to benefit in such a way. Until consensus or at least mutual understanding can be reached on this core issue, discussions about other matters all lead into blackholes. This is what the IWC needs to get away from.

The IWC is either a whaling regulation organization, or it isn't. If it isn't, then what reason is there for nations interested in such utilisation of whale resources remaining within the organization? They have the right to withdraw from the existing convention and set up a new organization to take up the responsibility that Australia and New Zealand would see the IWC abdicate. The policy makers of Australia and New Zealand need to take this issue and their role in international society a little more seriously, I believe.

My proposed solution is that Australia and New Zealand agree to whaling in the North Pacific if Japan agrees to not permit hunting of whale species of interest to them, such as the humpback. Neither side would be entirely happy, but it is a lot better than the alternative.

Why is Japan taking fin and humpback whales? Fin whales are still endangered, and humpbacks are classed vulnerable. I don't think forty years of protection is really enough when you consider that the humpback population has taken that long to recover half of its former number. I would have thought counting them would be of more importance than discovering how old they are, especially if Japan wants their numbers to return to commercially harvestable levels, it seems a little counterproductive.

But I don't understand why Japan wants to double its harvest of whales anyway. Just supposing there was a return to commercial whaling, what then? A Japanese paper poll a few years ago found that only 4% of the population regularly eat whale meat, 9% rarely eat it, 53% haven't eaten it since childhood and 33% never eat it. Not to mention the fact that whale meat (and especially minke whale meat) contains a dangerously high amount of toxins...

Arguments over the status of various whale stocks is another reason the IWC must be fixed. Japan's classification system is different to that which you refer to, and by their definitions fin whales are not endangered. This is based on 18 years of JARPA research during which time they have observed what they believe is a substantial increase in fin whale numbers (which is ongoing). With the humpback the situation is even better. Recent estimates presented to the IWC by an abundance estimation expert (based in South Africa) showed that there are more than 50,000 humpbacks in the southern hemisphere now. Australian scientists too agree that the populations which migrate up the east and west coasts of Australia to breed are increasing rapidly (for example, Mike Noad, who compared their rate of breeding to that of rabbits, at least as far as whales are capable of).

And again, Japan isn't talking about going back to hunting them at the same level they were exploited at by the whalers back in the 1950's and early 1960's. They are planning to take 50 each year for now. This is out of perhaps 20,000~25,000 humpbacks, of which numbers are growing at 10% each year. Taking 50 of them is not at all likely to lead to a significant drop in the rate of increase in numbers that is being observed, thus hardly counterproductive with respect to the desire to resume commercial whaling in future. As it happens, Japan does conduct whale counts for abundance estimation as well as the lethal aspects of it's programme. Japan also provides the IWC's SOWER programme with a vessel which the IWC uses for it's own whale counting work (this vessel will apparently be in Fremantle later this year).

If the IWC does set catch limits, commercial operations will only be possible if it makes economic sense for a business to utilise the quota set. If it's true that not enough people wishes to eat meat to make commercial whaling feasible, we hardly need a moratorium anymore (and what are we arguing about?). However, from the information I have seen the reason that Japanese people eat less whale meat today than in the past has a lot to do with the fact that the commercial moratorium imposed in the 1980's saw annual supply of whale meat drop drastically, to only about 2,000 tonnes. Prior to the moratorium there was 10 times as much meat available. Recently with increased sample sizes from the research programmes has seen supply increase, but this still only sees around 5,000 tonnes of "by-product" meat on the market each year. Interestingly, with this increase in supply, official stockpile figures from the Japanese ministry of agriculture indicate that volumes of outgoing stock (i.e. indicating consumption) subsequently increased as well. Still there is probably less potential demand for whale meat than their was in the hey-day, but given that the Icelanders have lined up a buyer in Japan for their own whale meat, there looks to be additional potential there to me.

It's also a generalization to suggest that all whale meat is toxic. If it were then we should have greater concerns for whale conservation that a little bit of whaling.

As an interested observer and from a farming and conservation background I have to say that I personally have no problem with a balanced harvest of whales (except that I can't see the need), but only if there was a humane way to slaughter them.
Japan needs to realise that asian countries are seen as cruel and inhumane in the way they treat animals by the rest of the world and they need to come up with a humane, painless way to harvest whales to even get a hearing in most countries.

To be fair, Norway (and I believe Iceland) also employ the same penthrite grenade harpoon technology as was developed by Japan in the early 1980's. This technology marked a significant improvement over earlier technology employed by whalers in western nations who were driven out of business by the collapse in whale oil prices. We ought to be careful about accusing others of cruelty.

"they need to ... to even get a hearing in most countries"

The situation at the current time is that Norway and Iceland are setting commercial whaling quotas already, and Japan looks as if it could be preparing to join them shortly.

These are sovereign nations, and they are not obliged to convince non-whaling nations of anything. These nations are talking about quiting the IWC and setting up a new organization to do the job properly. I think people underestimate the gravity of this.

Our priority should be first to ensure that whaling that is conducted is conducted on a sustainable basis. If we drop the ball here, and these nations go off and start harvesting whales in accordance with a new set of rules determined by themselves and themselves alone, there may not be any whales left to be worried about as far as cruelty is concerned, if they were to screw up to the same degree that others have in the past.

Donald Rothwell adds:

"One outcome of such proceedings would the issuing of an international 'injunction' requiring Japan to halt the JARPA II program for this coming summer. The other, would be an ultimate finding that Japan's conduct was illegal under international law and that it should cease its scientific whaling programs."

Ed.

If Australia loses an attempt at a court case that could be pretty bad right?

What would "Plan B" be in that case?