MUSEUM OF NATURE

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 11

MUSEUM OF NATURE

appreciate that whales With brains comparable in size and complexity with those living today were cruising in the oceans millions of years before man and his close ancestors had even evolved. Indeed, it is this early development of the brains of cetaceans (the whales

and dolphins) that makes them unique. The plea for the conservation of whales is an urgent one; it cannot be overstated. We estimate that in the 17th century the global population of whales was not less than 4| million. By 1930 it had been reduced by two-

thirds. Today it is estimated that the 17th century numbers are down by 94 per cent. Despite this catastrophic decline whales are etill being killed in their thousands. No animal can withstand such a depredation indefinitely. Time and time again biologists studying animal populations have demonstrated that extinction follows when animal populations are reduced below a critical level. Extinction follows either because there are insufficient young produced to replace those killed by natural causes or simply because the chance of the two sexes locating one another for breeding are diminished. Another complication is that some social species rely on the stimulus of the group for tnem to breed successfully.

A hopeful demonstration of effective conservation in New Zealand waters is the fur seal.

This seal, now protected, is still recovering from the slaughter it was subjected to in the 19th century.

In the case of the rarer whale species now being hunted it is almost as if an open shooting season were declared on New Zealand's 400 surviving notomis (takahe). Project Jonah The Canterbury Museum is participating in an international effort — project Jonah — to help publicise the plight of the whale. We invite the Sunday public visiting the Museum to record their concern here by signing a petition which will be used to put pressure on those few nations which still refuse to stop slaughtering whales. The aim of the petition is to bring about an immediate international ban on the exploitation of whales. —G.A.T.