Postwar Whaling and the Creation of the IWC, 1945-present

Postwar Whaling and the IWC, 1945-present

Internationalism and the Regulation of Whaling:

After World War II, it seemed that everyone was interested in getting back into the game of whaling. All of the traditional powers in whaling had plans drawn up to exploit the still rich whaling grounds of the Antarctic for oil. There was a worldwide shortage of fat and food in the early postwar period. Many of the vegetable oil stocks were decimated by the war, and there was widespread crop failure in much of Europe. Whales were a quick fix to end this crisis. Japan, for example, was allowed to hunt the Antarctic whaling grounds for the purposes of food, with the blessing of the US government (Tønnessen, 526-532). Many people in Japan who grew up in these hard times still have fond memories of eating whale meat as school children.

More important for the commercial whaling market, the above oil crisis sent commodity prices skyrocketing. Between the years of 1938 and 1948, the price of whale rose 270 percent, and prices did not fall until the mid-1950s (Ibid., 528). This was all the incentive the whalers needed to modernize their fleets and head back to the Antarctic.

The postwar reconstruction of the commercial whaling industry mirrored the reconstruction of other industries in war-torn countries. Technologically, a number of improvements were made. Like the land-based factories that were destroyed by munitions, enemy bombs and submarines sank much of the great fleets of European and Japanese floating factories. What the whaling industry replaced these ships with larger, newer whaling factories weighing up to 32,000 tons. The whaling industry also benefited from some of the technologies that came out of the war. Radar was one technology that was utilized. By attaching radar screens and company colors to the back of whales, catchers could leave their kills floating in the water to be picked up by factory boats later (Roman, p. 135). With all of this technology at the whalers’ disposal, whaling became a cold model of rational modernity

In the spirit of international cooperation that followed World War II, the whaling nations of the world got together in Washington, D.C. in 1946 to set up regulatory body for the industry. The signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was signed by all of the major whaling nations. (See image above) This convention was the foundational text for creation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which was designed to regulate the exploitation of resources in the open oceans. Before the signing of this text, nations were able to hunt whales without restrictions. The IWC was the one of the first attempts to hold the exploitation of marine resources in check.
(Image courtesy of the International Whaling Commission)

However, this treaty should not be mistaken as being an agreement to stop whaling. The signatories were all nations with long histories of whaling. Representatives from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, France, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, the USSR, and the USA all recognized the right of nations to continue whaling while achieving a “optimum level of whale stocks as rapidly as possible without causing widespread economic and nutritional distress” (IWC). (Japan, being occupied by the United States, was not among the signatories.) There was too much profit to be made on the oil of whales to stop whaling outright.

The management system that the IWC adopted had its roots in the 1930s. Global quotas were defined in “Blue Whale Units” (BWU), which was a quota system introduced by Norwegian whalers in 1932 (Clapham and Baker, pp. 1331-1332). Whales were measured for the average yield of oil for an adult blue whale, which was around 70 to 120 barrels of oil. Two fin whales were equal to one blue whale. Two and a half humpbacks equaled one blue whale. And six sei whales equaled one blue whale (IFAW). Nothing illustrates the commodification of the whale in the twentieth century more than this. Whales had been worked into the cycles of production and consumption of the industrial world.

The BWU remained in effect until 1972, despite recommendations from scientists both inside and outside of the IWC who argued the quota system was the most wasteful of the conservation strategies and encouraged over-hunting. Because the quota system was based on a communal limit, which applied to all signatories of the IWC, each whaling season was racing to see who could kill of the most. Between 1946 and 1951, the number of catcher boats worldwide rose from 129 to 263 (Tønnessen, p. 632)

The Environmental Movement and the End of the Great Hunt, 1970s to 1982:

Talk to any person who grew up in Vancouver in the 1970s about the whale products that littered their bedroom floor and they are more likely to talk about their books illustrating blue whales being the “gentle giants of the sea,” records of humpback whale songs, and tickets to the Vancouver Aquarium than they are about whalebone products like shoe horns, dice, and other figurines. In 1975, a small group of environmental activists led by the Canadian Paul Watson took on the USSR in their Zodiacs, photography the state’s violation of IWC treaties banning the hunting of adult sperm whales, unintentionally setting off another change in the ways in which people interacted and consumed whales (see image below). Along with the Canadian writer Farley Mowat, Watson and his companions at Greenpeace were largely responsible for shifting North American attitudes about whales, helping to increase the whales’ biological and aesthetic value. (Image courtesy of Green Peace)

In the beginning of this movement, the IWC were deaf to calls for the suspension of whaling. At IWC meetings, proposals for a ten-year moratorium on all commercial whaling were tabled but failed to achieve the three-quarters majority needed to pass the resolution. At the United Nations in 1972, environmental nongovernmental organizations recommended that the international body end the killing of whales and declare them an important part of “common heritage of mankind.” The following year, protests were held outside the headquarters of the IWC (Roman, p. 167).

Giving into international pressure from environmentalists, and public outrage over the killing of whales, the IWC agreed to admit nongovernmental observers, to their proceedings in 1978. A couple of years later the press was admitted for the first time. What the press reported sparked off a worldwide anti-whaling movement. Large protests were staged in Washington and London, and even IWC delegates from traditional whaling nations like Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and the United States emphatically denounced commercial whaling at IWC meetings (Ellis, p 250).

On 23 July 1982, the IWC voted for a moratorium on all commercial whaling. Many of the nations protested on both commercial and cultural grounds. Some continued to hunt whales under the threat of sanctions by the US government, which threatened to reduce to the allocation of fishing rights to any nation that defied the ban (Roman, p. 170). This threat seems to have done the trick. In 1987, the USSR officially stopped its slaughter of humpback and sperm whales. The Japanese quit officially in 1988, but still hunt whales for “experimental purposes.”

Conclusion: Consuming Cuteness

In most places in the world the consumption of whales has change significantly. Europeans and North Americans no longer consume products made with whale oil and of whalebone. These products have been replaced with things that can be best described as cute or, perhaps, spiritual or cool. It seems that we can’t live without whales in our lives.

Whaling watching is one of the new ways in which people can not only save whales, but also gives them the opportunity to meet them, talk to them, name them, and even touch them if they are lucky enough to get close. One researcher commented on this interaction as being mutually beneficial to both the watcher and the watched: “Cetaceans [whales and dolphins] increasingly appear to seek out and gain satisfaction from friendly encounters with humans, suggesting mutual enrichment as a common goal in human/cetacean relations in a modern world.” One critic of this interaction, the Norwegian anthropologist Arne Kalland commented that this interaction leads him to believe that “whales are actively involved in the planned salvation of the urban man from boredom.”

We are certainly entertained by whales. In fact, it seems that we just can’t get enough of them. Today, people not only watch whales on their vacations, they buy books about whales and adopt whales and dolphins for save the whale campaigns. As the number of whaling watching operators increases worldwide, the ideas of how whales are to be consumed by the middle classes of rich nations have changed. Opposed to the idea of whales as food, consumers have commoditized whales as something to watched and loved.