Governments To Keep Whaling
Talks Going For Another Year

The talks at the yearly International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference are to be continued for yet another year. The IWC's members include both the pro-whaling countries led by Japan, and the anti-whaling countries led by the US, and between them they hope to come to some sort of a deal that will keep the entire world happy when it comes to the subject of sustaining the whale population. Specified quotas of whales are still allowed to be fished for scientific reasons each year, but since 1986 there has been a global moratorium on commercial whaling, and only a few countries break this.

June.24.2009 - George Valentine Corr, Blatant News Editor
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WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL WHALING COMMISSION (IWC)?
The IWC was set-up in 1946 by 15 traditional whaling nations, who wanted to work out a way of safeguarding the whale stocks throughout the world, both for environmental and economical reasons. In the 1970's and 1980's non-whaling nations began to apply to become member states of the organisation, and some traditional whaling countries stopped whaling completely, so within no time the amount of anti-whaling nations far outweighed the numbers of pro-whaling nations in the IWC. From within the group the anti-whaling countries forced a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, which came into effect in 1986 and remains to this day. Historically whaling was done mostly for oils, but nowadays there is very little demand or need for whale oil so most whales are caught for food, or for scientific purposes.

WHO CATCHES WHALES NOWADAYS?
Canada has left the IWC and is not bound by its moratorium, and its commercial fishers, mostly Inuit, still catch whales en masse for their local food market. Due to quotas allowed by the IWC, Russians in Chukotka catch about 140 whales per year, American Alaskan's catch about 60, Greenland's Inuit fishers catch 175, the indigenous population of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean are allowed to catch 3, and Indonesia has a couple of whaling communities who are not part of the IWC and catch an unknown amount per year. Under IWC quotas Iceland catches 39 whales per year for scientific reasons, and the Faroe Islands, who are not part of the IWC, catch just under a thousand 'long finned pilot whales' yearly, which are actually a species of dolphin. But the biggest whale fishers are the Japanese and the Norwegians, both of whom have quotas of over 1,000 from the IWC, and both of whom utilise most of that figure. Norway's fishermen sell theirs as meat on the open market, and the Japanese say theirs are all caught for scientific research.

ARE WHALES ENDANGERED?
The Japanese do have an interesting point. They say that stocks of some fish are being put under great threat because of the lack of whaling. With no predator, the whales are given a free reign in our oceans, and are greatly diminishing stocks of certain fish. They say that they do testing on every whale they catch in an attempt to work out exactly what the stock levels are for the different species of whales, and they contend that they have driven huge advancements in building up a much more complete picture of the worlds whale stocks. The majority of whales which they catch are eventually sold as meat, so there is a little bit of politicking going on, but the Japanese will also contend that the Norwegians are catching as many whales as them, for purely commercial purposes, and for this reason alone they should not be internationally vilified in the way that they are on this issue. Whatever the case, the moratorium will stay in place for atleast 1 more year and similar quotas will be handed out to the countries mentioned.

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