INTERNATIONAL WHALING

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27074, 24 June 1953, Page 3

INTERNATIONAL WHALING

Talks On Conserving Resources (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 23. Russians, Americans, Japanese, New Zealanders, and Australians, and representatives of 12 other nations, met round a conference table in London yesterday to discuss problems of international whaling. . The Russian delegates walked round the conference hall shaking hands with the other members beiore the International Whaling Commission settled down to a week’s conference. The main task of the conference is to help conserve and utilise whale resources in' the common interest. The conference is expected to set a quota for the next international whaling season’s catch. The total catch permitted last season was 16,000 blue whale units. Mr G. R. Nugent, joint Parliamentary Secretary to the British Ministry. of Agriculture and Fisheries, said: “With modern factory ships, highspeed catchers, spotter planes, and electric "harpoons, you have a catching capacity which, if you released it and went to work in one or two seasons, would have exterminated the whale altogether. It does you great credit that you have forestalled this calamity.” . . .. Mr Nugent said that if breeding stocks were to be fully maintained, “we need to know much more about the habits and movements of the whale population. Only then can we be sure that the present catching limits are safe.” He , strongly urged some countries interested in whaling, but outside the convention, to join the international convention, “which alone can ensure the continued life of the whaling industry.” ~