Covering the International Whaling Commission meetings in Madeira, BBC’s Richard Black notes that both sides are using science now–whaling countries to maintain the hunt, whale lovers to restrict it. And of course, science has little to do with either position.
Whalers want to eat whales, whale lovers to protect them–both driven by instinct and emotion. Founded in 1946, the IWC is an aging beatnik of a body. We’ve been chanting “Save the whales!” since the 1950s, but the beat goes on. The fate of whales, like the fate of so many, straddles a divide in the human animal: the part of us that consumes against the part of us that reveres.
Japan has long argued that questions of whether or not whale stocks are robust enough to allow some hunting should be based on “science, rather than emotion” – a stance endorsed by other hunting countries including Iceland, whose IWC commissioner once argued in a memorable quote that “we should not make decisions on the basis of the survival of the cutest”.
Now, as discussions continue over whether or not Japan should be allowed to introduce what is effectively a new category of hunting – on a small scale, by coastal communities with a whaling history, and for local consumption [pdf link] – scientists affiliated to one of the organisations most implacably opposed to commercial whaling in any form, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), have also appealed for such decisions to be based on science….
Looking at the situation, you might conclude that everything was sweetness and light, with Japan’s Fisheries Agency and one of its fiercest critics snuggled up together, feeling the love (for science, of course) after decades of snarling strife.
Think again; the rocks in this bed are as cold and jagged as ever.
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