The annual conference ended this week, and the United States and its allies succeeded in maintaining a 13-year-old ban on commercial whaling. Several pro-whaling nations, however, threatened to ignore the restrictions, proving that the meeting once again failed to resolve the long-standing deadlock between anti-whaling nations and a majority opposed to unbridled whaling.
Delegates from pro-whaling countries such as Japan and Norway warned they may eventually disregard the commission, a rather toothless organization of 40 member states that sets policy but has no power to enforce it. "If there is not a compromise in the next few years, we may have to turn to other organizations," Norway's Halvard Johansen told the Associated Press. Johansen said that regional groups, such as one that unites Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Norway, could oversee whaling instead.
The IWC has opposed whaling for almost 20 years. The ban has been in place since the 1970s, when anti-whaling nations and conservation organization feared that whaling would end in the extinction of certain species.
Whaling proponents say the ban is outdated now that some types of whales have made impressive comebacks. Minke whales, for example, have returned from a few hundred to more than one million, while pilot whales now number more than 1.4 million, up from a few thousand just 10 years ago. What's more, scientists say humpback whale populations are growing at 10 percent a year and number more than 8,000. The commission reported that Bowhead populations are growing at 2 percent a year and number 9,200, while gray whales number 22,500, up 3 percent a year. Critics fear renewed commercial whaling could wipe out the gains and say whales are intelligent creatures that shouldn't be hunted. Environmentalists said they hoped the continuing ban eventually would kill the whaling industry as countries turn to other sources of food.
Leading the converted is the United States, a former whaling power that in the 1800s sent fleets of New England-based ships to roam the seas in search of whales. The United States gave up the trade as petroleum and synthetic materials replaced whale products in the 20th century. "There is always a fond remembrance of that whaling era, but there is no desire on the United States' part to see commercial whaling begin again," said U.S. delegate Michael Tillman. "We see the whale as something to protect."
In the Far East, however, whaling encouraged by the United States helped feed a devastated Japan after World War II. With land for cow pastures increasingly scarce in their country, Japanese delegates say whales remain an important source of food. In northern lands where crop seasons are short, whale meat can reduce reliance on imports.
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