WDC Blog - From the Front Line

SEA LIFE, part of the Merlin group of companies has joined with WDCS to end commercial whaling once and for all. And if you don't think that working with such corporate bodies achieves anything, take a look at what we have been doing with Waitrose and M&S in the UK.

In 2007, WDCS started a campaign encouraging the British public to urge supermarkets not to buy fish from companies that are connected, directly or indirectly, to whaling in Iceland. We provided a detailed analysis of the company links between the fisheries industry and whaling companies in Iceland and continue to provide updates to UK supermarkets. So is the campaign having an effect? You can be the judge. On March 24th 2009 Steingrimur Leifsson, director of the fish company Frostfiskur said that their company would be badly affected. The majority of their fish is sold to Waitrose, a high-class supermarket chain in the UK that is particularly aware of environmental issues and has high standards about where its food comes from. "A few weeks ago, soon after the outgoing fisheries minister, Einar K. Gudfinnsson, made his decision about commercial whaling, we received a letter from Waitrose saying that they would stop buying fish from Iceland if commercial whaling goes ahead," says Leifsson. "This is particularly bad for us, as we send out fresh cod and haddock daily to them, and get a good price for it. We have 130 people working for the company, and their jobs are at stake."

On March 27 Bloomberg reported that Iceland will seek to ban commercial
whaling as early as next year as the government aims to reverse a five-year hunting approval granted by the former administration, the Icelandic Fisheries Minister said. Whilst this is not an end to whaling in Iceland as the report goes onto say that they may well still allow coastal whaling (thanks Dr Hogarth ) it does show what can be achieved.

So working with SEA LIFE we shall be taking the fight into Europe and the USA. Lets see what we can achieve together

I have been meaning to contribute to our blog for a while now, however, the recent news story of Santino, a chimpanzee confined in a Swedish Zoo, has galvanised me into giving my two-pence worth.

Santino collects stones throughout the day to throw at visitors.

This apparently proves that chimps can plan ahead and how intelligent they are. Not once, and correct me if I’m wrong, have I seen an article asking why the poor creature might be doing this. Could it be that he is suffering from psychological problems due to being imprisoned in a cage for however many years? Wouldn’t you want to throw stones at your jailors if you were born to roam the forest with your friends? Friends that you’d chosen yourself; but instead you find yourself confined, day after day, inside the same four walls. With increasingly sophisticated methods of studying animal behaviour in the wild, is it still necessary to capture and confine animals in this way to prove they are intelligent? They’re not contributing to climate change or destroying their own habitat, so I‘d already assumed they were at least more intelligent than us as a species.
You may have guessed by now that I’m an anti-captivity campaigner. I challenge anyone to justify why we should keep wide-ranging mammals in captivity. I can’t comment specifically on all species, but for cetaceans I can. From an ethical point of view I believe it’s wrong and outdated to confine such intelligent and wide-ranging beings, without their consent. On top of the issues of confinement itself, many dolphins are still captured from the wild to sustain the captivity industry, a lucrative and secretive industry. However, more on this later…

I do sometimes wish dolphins would at least look miserable when they’re suffering or in pain, like Santino probably is (they have since castrated him in thanks of showing his intellegence). It would certainly make my job much easier. It’s hard for people to associate the colourful, splashy and exciting promotional images of dolphinaria with the suffering that goes on behind the PR machines. I wonder how many people stick around to watch the dolphins endlessly and listlessly circling their tiny pools once the show is over and the call for ice-cream sets in. Dolphins ‘smile’ even when they’re dead!

The ethics of keeping such large mammals captive was really bought home to me this week. While attempting to swim some serious lengths in my local swimming pool, I soon realised what it must be like to be a captive dolphin. Swimming in a crazy style to avoid being kicked in the head or leg, in a very cramped and over-crowded lane, I was thankful that at least I had the freedom to be able to walk out, in a huff, after 30 minutes. Not so easy for the dolphins!

It’s true that some individuals are made of sterner stuff. Lolita and Corky, for instance, have battled through and so far survived captivity for over 30 years; whereas some freak out and die within days or months. Others, like the orca known as Kasatka, have dragged their trainers to the bottom of their tank; while Santino chucks stones at the grinning tourists. I just hope that if I’m ever trapped like they are I’d have the strength to attempt to fight back or at least not give up – in the hope that someone would fight for my freedom.

We are having a bit of a debate on the BBC website at the moment. Richard Black has a very good blog that he writes on environmental issues, and we are trying to bottom out some points on the current push in the IWC on commercial whaling. If you want to take part have a look at Richard's piece and the comments. You'll see what we have been saying, and you may agree or may disagree. Have a look and join in the debate .

Someone asked me today what were the five biggest threats to cetaceans today and I had to think about the answer. Its not that I cannot list you a dozen threats, but actually the question made me reflect a little in terms of what I would say if asked again. I actually said that over fishing, prey depletion and bycatch were some of the biggest direct and indirect threats, but that these are doubly compounded by the fact that rapid climate change is causing these man made impacts spin out of control in very different ways that become hard to predict. That’s four threats. And whilst whaling and directed takes of cetaceans is nowhere near the impact of bycatch, politically the threat of whaling is even greater.

How so? you ask. Well if we allow commercial whaling to be legitimized, we are saying that this group of animals is just there for exploitation. How can we tell a developing country not to consume cetaceans caught in bycatch if they can point to developed rich countries that have no need to kill whales and dolphins, being supported by government subsidies to do so?

A pro-whaling lobbyist once told me that the reason his country was still supporting whaling was that they needed to stop the world from deciding that mankind could not manage the marine environment; to keep attention off the subject of other fisheries and keep us wrapped up in a debate that they don’t even think is worthwhile fighting for  apart from they don’t wish to surrender a principle.

I should have said to the person who posed the question to me today, ‘what are the five top threats to cetaceans?’  The top two are - Poverty and Ignorance.

Ignorance allows mistakes to be made, and Poverty allows those with power to exploit that ignorance. Poverty is sometime a legitimate excuse for not being able to deal with some environmental problems, but it is regularly exploited in others who should know better. For example its regularly exploited by Japan economic imperialism to buy support for its policies. Those who dance to Japan’s tune, plead poverty to justify their ignorance, but the countries that are pursuing the current compromise strategy have no excuse. Their ignorance is a conscious choice, and for that they should be ashamed.

I hate to say it, well I don’t actually, but I did say it would happen.  Korea have announced that it is ready to resume whaling if IWC concludes its Compromise Deal

Today the Intersessional Meeting of the Member States of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ended in Rome and  whilst nations gathered in Rome to discuss a potential deal with Japan in an attempt to reduce Japanese so-called ‘scientific whaling’, Korea announced that if such a deal goes forward it would seek a quota and commence commercial whaling.

WDCS, has long warned that establishing a new category of whaling as proposed in the ‘Hogarth Compromise’ will, in fact, make matters worse by attracting new countries to commence whaling. WDCS was, therefore, not surprised to hear Korea announce during the meeting that it was interested in starting whaling.  

WDCS has consistently pointed out to the IWC member countries that there is no hope of bringing all current renegade whaling under control without addressing all current and potential whaling. The ‘Compromise Deal’ as currently written fails to consider how to address existing Norwegian and Icelandic whaling

The organisers of the meeting tried to keep the discussions, and indeed the whole deal-making process secret from the public and media to avoid any immediate criticism of their actions. WDCS challenged the secrecy from the outset as a complete failure of accountability and a backward step for international conventions dealing with multilateral agendas. On the morning of the second day of the meeting, the restrictions were relaxed to allow participants, including the WDCS observer to report at the close of the meeting

The reality is that this secrecy speaks to the fact that many governments would prefer to discuss behind closed doors something that their voting publics would find abhorrent.

In addition the latest actions of the whaling nations during this process should tell the world that any attempt to give into their demands will simply result in disaster for the whales.

An unprecedented number of NGOs joined a statement by WDCS calling on the IWC to take more seriously the threat of increasing international trade in whale products by Norway, Iceland and Japan.

Despite the request of the chair at the outset of the negotiations in 2007 that all parties ‘act in good faith’, the whaling nations have apparently launched a campaign to further destabilise the IWC by dramatically increasing their trade in whale products WDCS fears that unregulated international trade in whale products will stimulate further increases in uncontrolled whaling, and further destabilize the IWC. WDCS and its colleagues called on the IWC to demand that the whaling nations revoke their Reservations to the CITES Appendix I listing of whales which currently allow them to trade without constraint.

As the meeting ended, WDCS pledged to increase its campaign to hold the previously pro-conservation IWC members to account throughout Europe and the globe.

Governments should recall that they are accountable to their citizens and transparency is key to gain trust by the public. And one thing can be assured. The majority of people do want to secure the future of whales and see an end to commercial whaling.

Maybe we are seeing the first creaks in the normally staid and poker-faced Japanese negotiating position. I say 'negotiating' position, but what I normally mean is that Japan usually says 'maybe' to every proposal that is put to it on whaling, or actually its answers are usually liberally spread with 'no', as much as 'maybe. However, the two words often mean the same thing.

So its interesting to see Reuters reporting that Japan may be contemplating scaling back its so-called ‘scientific whaling’ in order to keep the mushy-minded IWC members at the table. It’s a fig leaf of an offer that seeks to stop the US from replacing their redundant strategy of ‘compromise’ with an industrial whaling machine that has no intention of giving up its rights to unlimited numbers of whales.

A few months ago someone mentioned this strategy might be played out by Japan if it thought that it could not string-out the whaling compromise to a point where it would achieve commercial whaling on its terms and no one else’s.

It was predicted that Japan would offer up a five-year package of reducing its quotas in Antarctica to sucker more of the IWC members into a rush compromise deal that Japan could then slowly unpick, without actually giving up any real ground.

I am waiting for Japan to say that its first reduction is ‘not hunting humpbacks’; a species that it is threatening to hunt, but one, which it knows many nations would trade their souls for.

I never really got that by the way. I think Humpbacks are as remarkable as minkes, and I think humpbacks are incredible animals. We simply know more about the friendly humpbacks than we do about the minkes, and that’s after two decades of the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders, between them,  ‘studying them’ to death.

So maybe Japan is spooked enough to have to make this card play. But don’t be deceived this is a deception, and the Japanese whalers are good at that game as WDCS’s new report on Japanese whaling shows. It’s been one lie after anther as they try to bludgeon the world into accepting their views. Cultural and economic imperialism run rampant as they try to buy and fabricate there way to all out victory.

There is a war on whaling, but its not being fought on the high seas, its being fought in the tactics and strategies of governments as they maneuver to see who will have the right to decide the fate of the world’s whales - a few greedy and subsidized industries, or the world itself. Maybe the current economic crisis should have taught us – it’s a multilateral approach that needs to win out.

Japan, Norway and Iceland’s whaling industries and the few men behind their governments pulling the strings cannot be allowed to win. So remember, when the Japanese whalers say 'maybe' -watch out for the 'no' that is not far behind, but be careful what you have handed over for that hidden 'no'

Back in December I wrote about the Bush Administration's farewell to endangered species by "streamlining" the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  Seems that, in a Bush Administration dictionary, "streamlining" translates to allowing industries to benefit at the expense of endangered and/or threatened wildlife.  On December 11th 2008, with only weeks left in office, the Bush Administration passed their streamlining the ESA provision which meant that agencies no longer needed to consult with federal wildlife officials to ensure protection to endangered species.  They could simply allow actions to take place without expert advice.  When I wrote about it in December, I asked President Elect Obama for a Christmas gift- and today he granted it!  President Obama repealed the streamlining provision reinstating the status quo.  There are few times I can think of that I have been as happy to embrace the status quo as I am today!  So, depending on how you look at it, Christmas came a bit late, or very early- but arrived none the less.  Here's hoping the Obama Administration keeps gift giving for, at least, another four years! 

It would seem that our colleague Regina based out of our Plymouth office, USA, has hit the celebrity high of being quoted in Perez Hilton's blog. I am reliably informed (by Regina) that this is a rare honour

And what is the fuss about. In Lake Calcasieu, Louisiana, an albino; (looks like a bottlenose dolphin) has been spotted. Seems it is quite an attraction, but if you are tempted to go an see it, please note Regina's advice in the piece

What I mean is, when the rest of the world is falling over itself to give into Japan's demands for coastal quotas and a defacto resumption of commercial whaling, why does it go to the quite extraordinary lengths of allowing the import of Norwegian whale meat? This is especially strange when Japan has huge stockpiles of whale meat that it cannot even give away.

Well maybe it simply wants to snub the rest of the world (its being doing that for such a long time that bad habits die hard; or maybe it simply has one part of government that doesn't know what the other is doing. Because dont think Japan has the same level of democratic accountability as many other countries. The power invested in unelected civil servants is enormous in Japan. Its not the Japanese people who get to decide these policies by selecting their elected officals, its the career civil servants that have constructed the subsidy programmes for fisheries and whaling that enssure that as long as they protect these industries, their jobs are secure and their 'retirements' when they leave 'government' and join these same companies is also secure.

Jobs for the boys (by the way you don't find many women in these top jobs) is alive an well in Japan. And look what that type of nepotism has done for the world economy todate. Yep, Japan's whaling may be simply down to keeping a few civil servants in high paid jobs for life. Never mind the whales, each dead whale is a deposit in the pension fund of these guys.