Japan defies an IWC request to stop expansion of its whale harvest.

* Japan defies an IWC request to stop expansion of its whale harvest: In September 2000 the Japanese government announced that Japanese "researchers" had harvested 43 Bryde whales and 5 sperm whales. In past years, the country's ships have limited their haul to minke whales--of which they have killed more than 400 per year. The expanded harvest was justified by Japanese authorities as a scientific "feasibility study."

Japanese scientists at the Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR), the official research arm of Japanese whaling, allege that some smaller species of whales may be plentiful enough to--in effect--outcompete both humans and the more vulnerable small populations of endangered whales. This claim, however, does not sit well with the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which "strongly urge[d]" Japan to refrain from the expanded hunt.

The IWC banned commercial whaling in 1986, but a loophole allows harvesting some whales for scientific purposes. Japan has exploited that loophole heavily. After scientists take samples from the whales, the animals are butchered and sold in Japanese markets.

Disapproval of the expansion of Japanese research by the IWC was registered by a 19-12 vote of member states. That margin was closer than it would likely have been in earlier years of the moratorium--suggesting that the resolve of the IWC is weakening. The resulting erosion of anti-whaling sentiment in the IWC has aroused conservationists' fears not only that commercial whaling may be re-introduced, but that such whaling would then proceed in a poorly regulated environment--exposing whale populations to potentially devastating exploitation based on flimsy science. Conservationists note, for example, that knowledge of whale ecology is sparse. Pro-whaling groups are advocating the resumption of hunting for whales that have relatively large global numbers, citing global populations of 90,000 Bryde, 2 million sperm, and 1.4 million minke whales.

However, these numbers are highly uncertain, says Cassandra Phillips of the World Wildlife Fund. Moreover, the global numbers may not be the ones that really matter. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist for the Humane Society of the United States, claims that sustainable kill quotas can only be derived from local whale population data, since whales often tend to form discrete populations with respect to both geography and breeding. According to Rose, these self-contained stocks have not been sufficiently identified or studied to warrant hunting.

For now, conservationists' calls for a universal moratorium on whaling have boomeranged. Japan has suggested that Australia should withdraw from the IWC because of its hard-line opposition to whaling, and pro-whaling interests have discussed forming an industry-friendly alternative to the IWC. With respect to some of the more plentiful species, such as minke whales, former IWC secretary Ray Gambrell suggests that failure to lift the ban on commercial whaling might create "a real danger that the commission will lose its credibility totally."