13 Countries Join to Study Living Whales in the Wild

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said Australia is taking the lead to better manage the whales of the Southern Ocean and in the process, show the world that scientific research on whales can be done without resorting to lethal measures.

"This is about building the world's most comprehensive whale research partnership with countries interested in developing an agreed scientific approach to research – one that doesn't involve killing whales," Garrett said at the opening session.

Garrett envisions the new Southern Ocean Research Partnership as the first in a system of regional research partnerships that will counteract the bitter split in the International Whaling Commission between the whaling nations and the whale conservation nations that has stalled the work of the commission for years.

Minke whale in the Southern Ocean (Photo Courtesy Australian Antarctic Division © Commonwealth of Australia 2009)

"This week, 13 nations with a common interest in the Southern Ocean will work with scientists and specialists on an agreed approach to take us to a future where conservation of whales is the focus of science. "This is an opportunity for us all to examine current Southern Ocean research efforts, discuss research priorities, identify knowledge gaps, and map out how to build a scientific research program based on non-lethal methods," Garrett said.

The partner nations will use modern research technologies such as genetic and molecular techniques, satellite tagging, acoustic surveys and aerial surveying of cetacean populations.

"By the end of the week, we hope to have a draft five-year plan to present at the International Whaling Commission when it next meets in Portugal this June," he said.

Countries from four continents are participating in this week's workshop at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour - Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, and the United States.

Australia has committed more than A$14 million to develop and lead the Southern Ocean Research Partnership and to ensure it has sufficient support, in the form of research platforms, scientists and equipment, to continue to at least until 2013-2014.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett (Photo courtesy Government of Australia)

Garrett said Australia will make a one-time contribution of A$500,000 to the International Whaling Commission to establish a Southern Ocean Research Partnership Fund, to be administered by the IWC.

This fund will allow other countries to directly support and take part in the Southern Ocean Research Partnership and will be open to voluntary contributions from all IWC member nations.

"Ultimately, we want the IWC to become more science and conservation-focused and we believe the Southern Ocean Research Partnership is the best way to achieve this," said Garrett. "This first workshop builds on the comprehensive reform agenda for the Commission that we are continuing to advance and which continues to receive good support from other nations, including most recently at the Rome intersessional."

New data on minke whale distribution in pack ice in the Southern Ocean and new techniques developed by Australian scientists for researching whale abundance were presented at the workshop today.

CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences Research Fellow Dr. Natalie Kelly, who ran the first aerial survey operations in Antarctica, said the flights covered 4,448 nautical miles over three-weeks in December. One flight leader and four observers counted whales from the air.

"This data is then combined with information from high-definition video cameras, a high-resolution digital stills camera and an infrared camera installed in the base of the aircraft to detect whales hidden from view by the ice, helping provide a really comprehensive analysis of minke whales in the pack ice and their use of various pack-ice habitats," Kelly said.

Dr. Nick Gales, Leader of the Australian Marine Mammal Centre said ship-based surveys in the Southern Ocean over the past two decades had found evidence of a possible decline in minke whale abundance. The Japanese whle hunt in the Southern Ocean targets mainly minke whales.

"The IWC has been counting whales in the Southern Ocean since 1978 and evidence of a decline was obviously of increasing concern," he said, adding that aerial survey techniques are considered more reliable than ship-based surveys.

The Australian minke whale aerial survey team (Photo by Nathalie Kelly courtesy Australian Antarctic Division © Commonwealth of Australia 2009)

"Changes in distribution of sea ice each year, and changes in the number of minke whales present within the ice zone, particularly in the pack ice where the survey ships cannot penetrate, could be responsible for some of the changes in the number of whales seen in the open water," said Gales. "This new survey technique employing the latest technology will help us overcome those barriers."

The results will be presented, along with the latest ship-based estimates of minke whale abundance at the IWC meeting in Portugal in June.

The destruction of the world's whales by industrialized hunting was an environmental catastrophe of the 20th century, Garrett told delegates at the workshop's opening session.

"Many countries were complicit in this destruction, and nowhere was it greater in scale or intensity than the Southern Ocean, where blue, fin, right, and humpback whales were pursued to the very edge of extinction," he said. "Australia acknowledges its own involvement in this tragedy and we must all learn from mistakes of the past to make sure they are never repeated again."

Since the signing of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling in December 1946, the whale oil industry has disappeared, whale watching has become a significant economic activity, whale research has advanced, and there is recognition that whales are necessary for healthy marine ecosystems.

"Thirty years ago, a dramatic change in attitude toward whales swept across the globe, including across Australia: to save the whales from extinction, to help their populations recover and to restore their place in the world's oceans. This international change in attitude led to a significant policy shift, culminating in 1986 with the introduction of the historic global moratorium on commercial whaling," Garrett reminded participants.

Today, some species are showing healthy signs of recovery, with humpback and southern right whales increasing in numbers, but the survival of the majority of whale species is still not secure.

Crew aboard a Japanese whaling vessel measures the tail flukes of a minke whale. (Photo courtesy Institute of Cetacean Research)

"The population of South Pacific humpback whales has recently had its conservation listing increased from threatened to endangered; Antarctic blue whales, the largest animal that has ever lived, remain at an estimated two percent or so of their original abundance, and the population size of the endangered fin whales, of which some three quarters of a million were killed in the Southern Ocean, remains low and far from assured," Garrett said.

South American countries are concerned for their populations of southern right whales, particularly the very small, endangered population on the west coasts of Chile and Peru.

Whales face other threats too, Garrett said - fisheries bycatch, marine pollution, cetacean diseases, risks associated with growing whale watching industries, climate change, ship strikes, and habitat disturbances.

Last June, at the IWC annual meeting in Santiago, Chile, Australia proposed that all forms of whaling, including what is known as scientific whaling, be bought fully under the control of the Commission so that IWC Parties can no longer unilaterally kill whales in the name of science.

The proposal introduced the concept of new, non-whaling-related mechanisms, in the form of Conservation Management Plans, to collaboratively combat the many threats whales face.

Garrett said these Conservation Management Plans are being discussed as mainstream activities within the IWC, and are likely to be applied to some of the world's most threatened cetaceans after further discussions at the next IWC meeting in June.

The paper also proposed moving from the current nation by nation approach to cetacean research, through the establishment of voluntary regional research partnerships to maximize the use of scarce resources, build the capacity of countries not able to conduct this work independently, and align this work with the conservation needs of cetaceans.

"Today," said Garrett, "we are commencing the first and largest of these partnerships - the Southern Ocean Research Partnership - which will be cemented over the course of this week and result in a five-year research plan to be taken to the next annual meeting of the IWC."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.