Whale population tenets criticised

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 18

Whale population tenets criticised

Wellington reporter Several of the basic tenets used to estimate whale populations were criticised at the meeting of the International Whaling Commission’s scientific committee in England earlier this month, according to Greenpeace. The meeting was attended by Dr H. Donoghue, a member of Greenpeace, who is scientific adviser to the Government delegation to the Commission.

It was suggested that “discovery tags” used to mark whales might be lost, or even actively rejected by the whales, at rates of as high as 40 per cent, he said. So many whale population

estimates based on the tagging experiments might well be hopelessly inaccurate.

Dr Donoghue said this could effectively invalidate much of the work that had been done during the last 10 years.

Other basic assumptions, such as natural mortality rates, and the relationship between maximum length and mortality, had also come under attack at the meeting. Hectora dolphin, which was found only on the New Zealand coast, had been among four species receiving special attention at a sub-committee meeting on small cetaceans, he said.

Greenpeace said it was painfully obvious that the science being used was largely hit or miss. Some of the whale species had had 95 per cent of their numbers wiped out by commercial whaling. The moratorium was the only sure way of providing protection for large whales, and Greenpeace condemned the efforts of Norway to continue its whaling in spite of the moratorium that it was due to begin in 1985. Norway was lobbying to gain support for a proposal whereby it would withdraw its objection to the moratorium if the Commission reclassified its whaling as non-commercial.