Subject: Case Study: Scientific Whaling
Michael Williamson (whe_william)
Mon, 16 Dec 1994 13:43:53
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From: Michael Williamson <WHE_WILLIAM@flo.org>
Subject: Case Study: Scientific Whaling
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Subj: WHAT'S WRONG WITH WHALE CULTISTS?
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 15:18:04 PST
Reply-To: Marine Mammals Research and Conservation Discussion
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From: Alan Macnow <amacnow@igc.apc.org>
Subject: WHAT'S WRONG WITH WHALE CULTISTS?
To: Multiple recipients of list MARMAM <MARMAM@UVVM.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
FROM: Alan Macnow
Tele-Press Associates,Inc.
321 East 53 Street
New York, N.Y., 10022
Tel: (212) 688-5580
Fax: (212) 688-5857
FOR: Japan Whaling Association
WHALE PROTECTION GROUPS GET UGLY IN ASSAULT ON RESEARCH RIGHTS
Is the slaughter of chickens in the United States the
moral equivalent of the Holocaust? It is, according to the fa-
natical animal rights group PETA. Is the taking for research of
300 whales from a population exceeding three quarters of a mil-
lion animals equivalent to the bombing of Pearl Harbor? It is,
according to the most recent pronouncement of a coalition of ex-
tremist whale protection groups calling itself the Antarctica
Project.
Notwithstanding the fact that gross exaggeration seems
to be the stock in trade of fund-raising appeals, or that the
strategy of animal rights groups is to blur the distinction be-
tween people and animals, such comparisons are odious and
demeaning to the human victims of oppression and war.
In a further attempt to inflame emotions against Japan,
the Antarctica Project and Greenpeace, in a flurry of press
releases, accused Japan of violating the sanctity of the
Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary by continuing its research there.
Japan's Antarctic whale research project, begun in 1988,
takes a random sampling of 300 Antarctic minke whales each year
from a population that numbers over 760,000 animals. The
species is unendangered and no other types of whales are
touched. The research is authorized by the International Con-
vention for the Regulation of Whaling. The small number taken
is well below annual replacements through reproduction.
The Sanctuary, a contrivance devised by a handful of
anti-whaling countries to be a hallowed haven for their sacred
cow of the sea, occupies 19 million square miles of ocean
northward of Antarctica. If applied to the Northern Hemisphere
it would encompass everything from the North Pole down to Lis-
bon's latitude. The Sanctuary specifically bans commercial
whaling, but encourages research.
Designation of the Sanctuary represents the attempted
expropriation of international waters by only 23 of the IWC's 41
members. They represent a very small share of the almost 200
countries of the world, most of whom were never consulted. It
also was done without the approval of the International Whaling
Commission's Scientific Committee, the Commission for the Con-
servation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources, or the scores of
countries dependent upon ocean resources.
In fact, the designation of the Sanctuary violated the
principles and provisions of the International Convention for
the Regulation of Whaling, which requires the IWC to: "provide
for the conservation, development, and utilization of the whale
resources." The major provision of the United Nations Confer-
ence on Environment and Development, calling for sustainable use
of renewable natural resources, was trashed as well.
The IWC's Scientific Committee, with the exception of a
few scientists employed by anti-whaling groups, saw no value in
the Sanctuary because use of its revised management procedures
would safeguard and rebuild all of the depleted stocks in the
Southern Ocean while providing for limited use of such abundant
species as the minkes. Moreover, establishment of a Sanctuary
would be an abdication of the IWC's duty to manage whale stocks
as required by the International Convention for the Regulation
of Whaling.
Although Japan opposed establishment of a Sanctuary and
considers it illegal in terms of the whaling Convention, it will
not resume commercial whaling until the IWC ends its whaling
moratorium.
Isn't it time for a moratorium on the dishonest and un-
principled attempts to inflame emotions against Japan?
-end-