By Meghan E. Marrero and Stuart Thornton

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

     In 1946, several countries joined to form the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The IWC’s purpose is to prevent overhunting of whales. Its original regulations, however, were loose, and quotas were high. Whale stocks continued to decline. The IWC eventually established whaling-free sanctuaries in the Indian Ocean (1979) and the ocean surrounding Antarctica (1994).

    The IWC called for a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. Both Japan and Norway voted against this policy. Today, Norway supports hunting minke whales for meat. Japan allows whaling for scientific purposes, although many experts question if more whales are taken than are necessary. Meat from whales killed for research is sold as food. 

     Many species of whale have benefitted from the IWC’s moratorium. Dave Weller, a research biologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, says the eastern Pacific gray whale population has recovered.

     “I think there is pretty good evidence that a moratorium on hunting has allowed certain populations to recover from depleted status when they were being whaled,” he says.

     According to Weller, the IWC’s moratorium on whale hunting is one of two major steps the organization is taking.

     “The other thing that the IWC has very successfully done is to collect information and provide analysis of data to help us understand the status of various populations that in some cases we knew very little about,” he says.

      Despite the general moratorium, limited whaling is permitted to indigenous cultures.

     “In the United States, the Inuit Eskimos in the north slope of Alaska, in Barrow, Alaska, still hunt for bowhead whales,” Weller says. “There is a request by the Makah Indian tribe, which is in northern Washington state, to resume gray whale hunting, which they had traditionally done. But that’s pending deliberations right now.”

Source: http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/news/ (Adapted)