(Paris) The arrest in Greenland of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson has brought back into the spotlight this practice, which has been the subject of a moratorium since 1986 but which remains defied by three countries, killing around 1,200 whales each year, according to the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Why was whaling banned?
Whaling has been going on since at least the 9the century, for its meat, but also its oil, which was once used for lighting, and its bones for tools.
From the 19the century, this hunt became industrialized. So much so that in the 20the century, nearly 3 million cetaceans fell under harpoons, according to figures from the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several species became threatened. In the 1950s, there were only 450 humpback whales left in the world.
In an attempt to regulate, the IWC was created in 1946. And in 1986, it adopted a global moratorium on commercial whaling to allow species to recover.
Who is hunting despite the moratorium?
Today, three countries grant commercial whaling quotas: Japan, which left the IWC in 2019, as well as Norway and Iceland.
The moratorium also allows captures for certain indigenous tribes in Greenland, the United States, Canada, Russia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, but only for subsistence hunting.
A controversial moratorium clause, long invoked by Japan, also allows fishing for scientific purposes.
But “this is an unacceptable justification and few valid scientific studies are produced” from this fishing, Paul Rodhouse of the Marine Biological Association in Great Britain told AFP.
After being condemned in 2014 by the International Court of Justice for circumventing the moratorium, Japan finally withdrew from the IWC at the end of 2018, with commercial fishing resuming in July 2019.
A still fragile population
The 1986 moratorium “had a general beneficial effect” on the most threatened populations, according to Vincent Ridoux, professor of biology at the University of La Rochelle.
Humpback whale numbers have now recovered to around 25,000 individuals, returning to “least concern” status on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
But “recovery is uneven from one species to another,” the academic emphasizes. Some remain classified as “vulnerable” by the IUCN, such as the fin whale, “endangered” like the blue whale, or even “critically endangered” for the North Atlantic right whale, of which there are only 200 individuals left.
“There is still a long way to go” before the whales are out of danger, says Mr. Ridoux.
These animals have a very slow reproduction rate and also face other risks, such as collisions with ships, fishing nets and pollution.
Global warming poses another threat: between 2012 and 2021, the number of whales declined by 20% in the North Pacific, according to an Australian study, due to the scarcity of phytoplankton, their main food.
More intensive hunting?
In May, Japan launched a new factory ship, the Kangei Maru, designed for intensive, long-distance whaling.
To make such a high investment profitable, “you need significant quotas to balance operating costs,” warns Mr. Ridoux.
Considering that the populations had been sufficiently restored, Japan added fin whales, classified as “vulnerable” by the IUCN, to the list of cetaceans that can be hunted by its whalers, alongside the minke whale (known as the minke whale), the Bryde’s whale and the sei whale. The first two are classified as “least concern”, that is to say presenting “a low risk of extinction”, but the sei whale is “threatened”.
Tradition
The Japanese government justifies whaling on its website in the name of a tradition dating back to the 12th century.e century and for its “food security”, the country having few agricultural resources.
However, whale meat is consumed less and less: after a peak of 233,000 tonnes in 1962, the Japanese now only eat 2,000 tonnes per year.
In Iceland, too, eating whale is less popular. A 2023 poll showed that 51% of Icelanders are now opposed to this hunt.
In June 2023, the hunt was briefly suspended in Iceland after a government report found that explosive harpoons caused agony lasting up to five hours. The 2023 season ended with 24 fin whales caught out of a permitted 209. But new fishing quotas have since been adopted.
Ecological role
“Whales are an extremely important component of marine biodiversity and they shape ecosystems,” says Paul Rodhouse.
Their abundance “enriches the surface layers with mineral salts and mineral elements such as iron”, an essential source of food for marine organisms, explains Vincent Ridoux.
Protecting whales “is not just about saving a charismatic element of the great fauna, but it is about maintaining a balance of ecosystems necessary for the preservation of the health of nature and humans,” concludes Paul Rodhouse.