Killing whales for science

Australia has taken Japan to the International Court of Justice over Japan's whaling in the Southern Ocean. There is an interesting series of articles on the Conversation that summarise the court case (in chronological order they are here, here, here, here and here). Australia has argued that Japan is in violation of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and also that Japan's whaling is in contrary to their obligations under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Japan insists that its whaling activities are for scientific research, which is allowed under the rules set out in the Whaling Convention. Australia case will primarily try to establish that the activities are really a commercial harvest in breach of the International Whaling Commission's moratorium. New Zealand, while not bringing a case against Japan, is set to provide evidence in support of Australia's case. 

It's the worst kept secret in the Universe that Japan is actually engaging in commercial whaling, but establishing it legally seems a bit more tricky. The scientific basis for the hunt has repeatedly been criticised for failing to meet the minimum standards required for science. The major concerns are that very little of the data is published in the scientific literature and most of the hypotheses they claim to be testing are already well established or can be tested without killing whales.

The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) is the organisation the undertakes the supposed scientific research involving the lethal sampling of whales. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has recently estimated that the Japanese Government has provided 387 million dollars to the ICR since scientific whaling began in 1988. Since then the ICR has published 150 papers in the literature (according to Web of Science), which is extremely poor output for the amount of money put in (2.58 million per paper!). It is, in fact, poor output had they only received 1% of the IFAW figure.

Another thing to consider is that the 150 published papers are not all on whales and those that are often do not require that the whales be killed to collect the data. Only a tiny minority of the ICR papers present data the require the death of whales and the 387 million dollars has been provided specifically to support the killing of whales. No funding agency would normally continue to provide funding for a research program that has so utterly failed to produce valuable science.

The ICR has stated on several occasions that the output would be better if they didn't have to contend with the Sea Shepherd activists because they prevent adequate sample sizes being taken. Despite these claims the sample size is clearly more than high enough to do some interesting science. In a brief literature search*, I found four papers published since January 2012 that required a total of 37 dead whales. In the same period, the ICR has killed 170 whales in the Southern Ocean alone (notably the lowest two catches since its whaling began) and published just one study in a low quality journal.

It is a hard problem to define exactly what constitutes science. Japan has argued that the International Court for Justice "is a court of law, not of scientific truth", claiming that the Court doesn't have the jurisdiction to determine what constitutes science. But, I think this misses the point. The Court is not being asked to define what constitutes science, but whether the research program is legitimate under the Whaling Convention or veiled commercial whaling. That veil is pretty thin in my opinion and I hope the Court sees it that way too.

*The papers I looked at in the literature search were:
1) Ford T. J., Werth A. J. & George J. C. (2013)
An Intraoral Thermoregulatory Organ in the Bowhead Whale (Balaena mysticetus), the Corpus Cavernosum Maxillaris.
The Anatomical Record 296, 701–708 doi:10.1002/ar.22681

2) Werth A. J. (2013)
Flow-dependent porosity and other biomechanical properties of mysticete baleen.
The Journal of Experimental Biology 216, 1152-1159 doi:10.1242/jeb.078931

3) Pyenson N. D., Goldbogen J. A., Vogl A. W., Szathmary G., Drake R. L. & Shadwick R. E. (2012)
Discovery of a sensory organ that coordinates lunge feeding in rorqual whales.
Nature 485, 498–501 doi:10.1038/nature11135

4) Yamato M., Ketten D. R., Arruda J., Cramer S. & Moore K. (2012)
The Auditory Anatomy of the Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata): A Potential Fatty Sound Reception Pathway in a Baleen Whale.
The Anatomical Record 295, 991–998 doi:10.1002/ar.22459

Send the navy

A few weeks ago I wrote about the incursion of a Japanese whaling vessel into Australian waters. Now the Yushin Maru 3, a ship from the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, has again entered Australian waters. Maybe it's time the Australian Government enforced it's policy of not allowing whaling vessels to pass through the exclusive economic zone. The whalers don't seem to be listening to the warnings. It would put a smile on my face if the Australian Customs and Boarder Protection Service confiscated and scuttled the Yushin Maru 3.

Japanese incursion

Two days ago a Japanese vessel, the Yushin Maru No. 3, associated with the whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean sailed 8 nautical miles into Australia's Territorial Waters in pursuit of a Sea Shepherd vessel. The Yushin Maru No. 3 is a harpoon ship used for whale catching and is unwelcome in Australian Territorial Waters where whaling is illegal. Despite Australian Government protests to Japan the vessel stayed within Australian waters for more than 24 hours. Moreover, it stayed within Australian waters for several hours after it was said to be leaving. It continues the pugnacious approach that Japan has adopted in its dispute with Australia over its whaling activities in the Southern Ocean. 

The Yushin Maru No. 2, a harpoon vessel similar to the Yushin Maru No. 3

Although the vessel is now within Australian's Exclusive Economic Zone there is apparently little legal recourse for Australia as long as the vessel does not hunt whales. Australia has  claimed its Exclusive Economic Zone as a whale sanctuary. Under international law Australia should have the legal right to regulate fishing, including whaling, within this zone. But, Japan continues to hunt whales within the sanctuary under the guise of scientific research*. Finally, after much dithering by both major political parties, Australia launched legal proceedings against Japan over the whaling in the International Court of Justice. Australia submitted its case in May 2011 and Japan is due to make its submission in March this year.

Map of Antarctic territorial claims. Australia claims two territories (orange) which sandwich the French claim (dark blue). Norway claims the next largest territory (purple). New Zealand (green) also claims territory. The UK (red), Chile (yellow) and Argentina (light blue) have overlapping claims.

Any reduction in the area that Japanese can catch whales in as a result of Australia's action in the International Court for Justice is, unfortunately, unlikely to have a great effect on the supply of whale meat in Japan. Australia claims and exclusive economic zone in the waters off its Antarctic territory, but Japan and most of the rest of the world does not recognise this claim. Indeed, only four countries who also claim large exclusive economic zones in the Antarctic recognise Australia's claim. Japan is therefore likely to be able to continue whaling in these areas. Moreover, Iceland now exports whale meat to Japan, reportedly earning the country $US 17 million in the last four years. Like Japan, Iceland's whale hunt is conducted under the guise of scientific research. I guess they have a lot of collaborators in Japan...

The Japanese and Icelandic whale research programmes produce few, if any, valuable data on whales. Moreover, non-lethal research can be used to produce much of the same information. Scientific reviews of the research programmes conducted by the International Whaling Commission have found that experimental designs are shoddy, and that the information is either not required for management or obtainable by non-lethal means. That has not stopped either of the countries from whaling. Indeed, Japan has tried to use their data to argue that whale numbers are growing and need to be culled to preserve commercially important fish species. Of greater threat to Japan's commercially important fish stocks is certainly Japan's fishing fleets. I'll write more on that sometime.

*As Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman joke in Good Omens, the research is primarily concerned with determining how many whales can be caught during the whaling season.