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Banner Photography: ©
Martha Watkins Gilkes |
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Whales and Fisheries
Photography: © EIA Whaling countries have increasingly
blamed whale populations for the decline in commercial fisheries
catches, in order to garner support for commercial and “scientific” whaling.
Couched in terms of “ecosystem management,” whaling
countries have advocated the killing of whales and other marine
mammals to “save” commercial fish stocks. The Caribbean-driven
St. Kitts Declaration at the 58th Annual Meeting of the IWC
misleadingly stated:
“scientific research has shown that whales
consume huge quantities of fish making the issue a matter of
food security for coastal nations and requiring that the issue
of management of whale stocks must be considered in a broader
context of ecosystem management…”
This abuse of the
term “ecosystem management” has long been a central
theme in Japan’s pro-whaling communications. Ignoring the fact that over-fishing
by the world’s fishing fleets has been the principal driver behind decimating
commercial fish stocks, pro-whaling countries have used this dubious theory to
justify killing thousands of whales.
The assumption that killing whales could increase fish stocks is an extreme oversimplification
of a complex issue. In reality, there is little overlap between human fisheries
and whale prey, and predatory fish consume more fish than whales do. Moreover,
since some marine mammal prey species compete with commercially targeted fish,
it is possible that removing marine mammals from marine ecosystems could result
in fewer fish available to the fishing industry. This effect was highlighted
with respect to sharks, another fish predator, in the 2007 Science article
listed below.
Further reading:
Whales are eating up all the fish?
Junko Sakuma, IKAN,
July 2006
Whales competing?
An analysis of the claim that some whales
eat so much that they threaten
fisheries and the survival
of other whales.
S. Holt, 2006
Competition between marine mammals and fisheries:
food for thought.
Kaschner & Pauly,
May 2004
Ecosystem-Based Management in Multilateral Environmental Agreements:
Progress towards Adopting the Ecosystem Approach in the International
Management of Living Marine Resources.
D.E.J. Currie, 2006.
Cascading Effects of the Loss of Apex Predatory Sharks
from a Coastal Ocean.
Science 315:
1846-1850.
Ransom A. Myers, Julia K. Baum,Travis D. Shepherd, Sean P. Powers, Charles H.
Peterson. 2007. |
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