Commercial Whaling Research Paper

Since the 1986 Whaling moratorium, scientific whaling is the only whaling that the IWC (International Whaling Commission) has permitted using the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) article VIII ruling which grants a country’s government to issue scientific whaling permits. Scientific whaling is the practice of killing or hunting whales for scientific research purposes whereas commercial whaling is the killing or hunting of whales for meat, fat, bone or oil. Iceland and Norway were originally signatories of this ruling and stopped commercial whaling for a short period and only had scientific whaling programs, however they have since lodged omissions from the IWC and continue to whale commercially around their …show more content…
Before the 1986 whaling moratorium, Japan had one of the largest commercial whaling fleets, although they also had a small scientific program. From 1954 to 1986 Japans scientific whaling programs killed 840 whales globally for scientific research, however after 1986 Japan’s new scientific whaling programs killed over 8321 for research in 18 years 1986-2004, almost a tenfold increase in half the amount of time. All other nations undergoing scientific whaling research killed around 2100 whales altogether between 1952-2005 (Gales, et al., 2005). However it has been argued that this increase is due to the fact that scientists were able to use the whales taken for commercial whaling for their research and now must make up the number of samples analysed by taking more whales through scientific whaling. Japan’s ICR scientific whaling programs target eight species of whale; the common minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), the Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis), fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) sperm whales (Physeter …show more content…
The reduction of large aquatic mammals, especially baleen whales has led to a drop in the amount of carbon that the ocean can store. Although marine mammals are a small contribution to the ocean’s whole carbon budget any carbon that is accumulated in large marine mammal bodies such as whales, will stay out of the atmosphere as long as the animal is alive (Pershing, et al., 2010). Animal tissue that stores carbon must maintain the carbon by feeding and although the reduction of large whales has led to an increase in smaller fish, in respect to the size of whales, large marine mammals such as whales require less food per volume than smaller animals means they are more efficient than the smaller animals at accumulating carbon. The continual removal of whales from the ocean means that less carbon can be stored in marine ecosystems, and the continuation of scientific whaling contributes to the ongoing lowering of the oceans ability to store carbon. If nonlethal researching methods were used and whale populations were given a chance to recover, then an excess of 160,000 tons C yr-1 would be exported from the atmosphere to the oceans. (Pershing, et al., 2010). This would drastically reduce excess atmospheric carbon which would help reduce global warming through climate change and it would also help reduce ocean

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