Newswise — While the whaling nations, Iceland, Norway and Japan push for a resumption of full scale commercial whaling, WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society highlights the fact that commercial whaling has already done such damage to whale populations that it should never be allowed to resume.
Sue Fisher, WDCS Anti-Whaling campaigner says, "The critical situation in which many whale populations still find themselves today, 20 years since a ban on all commercial whaling was introduced, and decades since certain populations were protected, shows clearly that whaling is an unsustainable, uncontrollable and dangerous industry. We cannot take the risk that whale populations will be devastated again. Commercial whaling cannot be allowed to resume."
There are no large whale species which were not greatly impacted by the whaling industry last century and many populations of these long-lived, slow-breeding mammals are sill struggling to recover. Yet, whaling countries continue to push for the commercial whaling ban to be lifted. For example, Japan has submitted a proposal to the IWC to hunt minke whales in the North West Pacific under a new catgory of traditional whaling - essentially commercial whaling in disguise since it would mean the end of the commercial whaling ban.
Sue Fisher continued "Japan is trying to blur the distinctions between whaling that is permitted for aboriginal subsistence purposes and whaling for profit, in order to lift the ban on commercial whaling by the back door."
Japan argues falsely that there are over a million minke whales, calling them the cockroaches of the sea. Yet there are at least two different species of minke whale in existence and many distinct and separate populations within these. Some of those populations are highly vulnerable, including a population that would be targeted in Japan's new proposal.
Whales face multiple threats across the world's oceans, such as habitat loss, chemical and noise pollution, climate change, entanglement in fishing nets, vessel strikes and hunting. WDCS calls on governments around the world to oppose all attempts to add another threat by reopening commercial whaling. WDCS highlights that governments should be working to address the current threats that compromise whales' survival, not increasing them.
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