From: gisle@ifi.uio.no (Gisle Hannemyr)
Subject: Re: Whale Research
Organization: gisle@ifi.uio.no
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 22:54:54 GMT
Originator: gisle@gyda.ifi.uio.no

In article <1992Aug14.174852.26475@ugle.unit.no> jafitv@termo.unit.no (Jan Arne Fagertun) writes:
> In article <1992Aug14.133831.28632@ifi.uio.no>, richard torres writes:
|> 
|> Please explain  what  the norwegian scientists are researching
|> on about whales.  Is it really necessary to slay more than a
|> hundred whales?  Why are the norwegian scientists doing the  
|> research alone?  I'm sure other nations would like to do research
|> about whales as well.  Imagine if they start doing their own slaying. 
|> Any research about whales must be done internationally so that
|> scientists from different countries can share their results and  monitor
|> each.  This way less whales will be unnecessarily be slaughtered.
|> Any comments are welcomed.

> Please explain why people all over the world hunt animals. Imagine if
> all men and women start doing their own slaying.
[ more parody deleted ]


Jan, those were legitimate questions, and deserve proper answers, not
parody.  He is not asking about commercial hunting, but about this
year's research and the number of whales killed for research.

I am probably not the right one to answer this, and had hoped that someone
closer to the research work would step forward.  But if no-one else
answers, I'll have a go -- mainly based on what the newspapers have said
on this:

|> Please explain  what  the norwegian scientists are researching
|> on about whales.

I believe the main topics for research is the number of whales, what
they eat, and their reproduction rate.  You don't have to kill whales
to count them, but unfortunately you need to do that to find out what
is in their stomachs, and how many whale cows are pregnant.  In
addition, there is some public interest in Norway and abroad in hard
data about the killing/hunting methods themselves (what is time
elapsed from the hit until the animal is dead, what proportion of the
animals escape after being wounded, etc.).

|> Is it really necessary to slay more than a hundred whales?

The anti-whaling organizations main argument against some of the
statistical data that support whaling is that this data is unreliable
because the number of whales in the sample is too few to make the data
statistically significant.


|> Why are the norwegian scientists doing the research alone?
|> I'm sure other nations would like to do research about whales as
|> well.  Imagine if they start doing their own slaying. 
|> Any research about whales must be done internationally so that
|> scientists from different countries can share their results and
|> monitor each [other?].

The Norwegian whaling research is done with the approval of, and under
the auspices and control of the IWC (International Whaling
Commission), of which all whaling nations (and a large number of
non-whaling costal nations) are member.  The results from this
year's Norwegian research will be shared internationally with other
scientists both through the IWC and standard scientific channels.
There are IWC approved inspectors aboard all Norwegian whaling boats
to monitor the activities.

According to the charter signed by all IWC member nations, all whaling
activites must be approved by the IWC.  If other nations want to do
their own "slaying", I am certain that the IWC would coordinate their
research with the Norwegian project (or call for an international
project).  They have not indicated that they want to do so, and I can
only assume that are happy to let Norway take the brunt of the current
international outrage on the killing of sea mammals

|> This way less whales will be unnecessarily be slaughtered.

As the meat resulting from this years research hunt will be available
in the shops and used for human consumption. Hence, no whales are
unnecessarily slaughtered :-) .

I suspect that you will feel provoked by the sentence above and the
following smiley.  You may even elect to interprete it as evidence
that this year's research hunt is just commercial hunting in disguise.
I can assure that this is not the case.  The number of whales that the
ships are permitted to kill this year is about 1/15th of what would
make sense commercially and the sale of the meat will not pay for the
fixed costs involved in the hunt.  But the researchers felt it would
be an abomination to destroy good meat fit for human consumption.

To give you a less provoking answer: The number of whales that is to
be killed for research purposes this years is set by the scientists of
the IWC, not by the Norwegians alone.  I trust the integrity of the
IWC scientists to not set the number higher than absolutely necessary
for scientific purposes.  However -- Norway has every intention of
starting up commercial whaling of non-endangered species of whale
again.  When we do, it will presented as such, and not under the guise
of "research".

|> Any comments are welcomed.
That's very generous of you.
--
Disclaimer: My employer seldom even LISTENS to my opinion.
 
- gisle hannemyr  (Norsk Regnesentral)
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