Save the Whales

January is Whale Watching Month. Many environmental scientists are concerned that there may be no whales to watch in the future if whale hunting continues without limits.

Whaling as an industry began around the 11th century, when the Basques started hunting and trading the products from the northern right whale (now one of the most endangered of the great whales). They were followed first by the Dutch and the British, and later by the Americans, Norwegians, and many others. Humpback and sperm whales were the next targets of commercial whaling, with oil as the most important product.

In the late nineteenth century, the whaling industry was transformed by the development of steam-powered ships, enabling the hunting of faster blue and fin whales, and of the explosive harpoon, enabling further reach and increased accuracy. The new technology, coupled with the depletion of whales in the rest of the world, led to the spread of hunting to the Antarctic, where huge concentrations of feeding whales made large-scale whaling highly profitable.

Since whales migrate worldwide through both coastal waters and the open oceans, the need for international cooperation in their conservation became evident. By 1925, the League of Nations recognized that whales were over exploite, and that there was a need to regulate whaling activities. In 1931, despite the growth of international organizations to preserve the whale populations in the oceans of the world, 43,000 whales were killed by commercial whaling operations.

With species after species of the great whales being hunted close to extinction, various nations met throughout the 1930s attempting to bring order to the industry. Finally, in 1948 the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) came into force. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established as its decision-making body, originally with 14 member states. The IWC meets annually and adopts regulations on catch limits, whaling methods and protected areas, on the basis of a three-quarters majority vote.

In recent years, the IWC, recognizing new threats to whales, has moved towards a broader conservation agenda, which includes incidental catches in fishing gear and concerns related to global environmental change. Whale hunting by indigenous people, called "aboriginal subsistence" whaling, is subject to different IWC controls than those on commercial whaling.

Assign students to write a report of at least 100 words or a presentation of at least 5 slides that cites at least three resources. Students should use the pathfinder listed below to save time searching and ensure the best results list.

Students should address the following examples of essential questions for critical thinking in their reports (you may want to substitute others):

• Where are the largest concentration of whales found and what type of whales are they?
  
  
• What are the major commercial uses of whales that are slaughtered by the fishing industry?
  
  
• What are some of the environmental groups that work to conserve the whale population?
  
  
• What are strategies that these groups use to try to limit commercial fishing?

Select the Subject Heading search option > Type "Whales" in the Search box > Click on each of the following links to browse: Whales; Whaling; Whaling Laws and Legislation