Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2019)

pp. 59–62

International meetings

Participation of scientists of the Institute of Cetacean Research inInternational Meetings in 201934th International Symposium on the Okhotsk
Sea & Polar Oceans, 2019The Okhotsk Sea & Polar Oceans Symposium is organizedannually by the City of Mombetsu. This symposium promotes the advancement of all ice-related studies including biology and ﬁsheries, in the Sea of Okhotsk.
The 2019 symposium was held at the Mombetsu
Culture Hall, Mombetsu, Hokkaido, Japan from 17 to 20February. Two scientists from the Institute of CetaceanResearch (ICR) (Kato and Tamura) participated in the symposium by presenting an ʻOutline of the second whale
scientiﬁc permit survey oﬀ the coast of the Okhotsk Sea
under the NEWREP-NP program.ʼ

documents at the Ad hoc Working Group on Abundance
Estimates, Stock Status and International Cruises, twodocuments at the Working Group on Ecosystem Modelling, two documents at the Working Group on Environmental Concerns, one document at the Working Groupon Stock Deﬁnition and DNA Testing, and two documents
at the Sub-Committee on Other Southern Hemisphere
Whale Stocks.
The report of the IWC SC meeting can be found in thewebsite of the IWC (https://iwc.int/home).

Safari Park Hotel & Casino, Nairobi, Kenya.

Mombetsu Culture Hall, Mombetsu, Japan.

Annual meeting of the International Whaling
Commission Scientiﬁc Committee (IWC SC)
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is an international body set up by the terms of the International
Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), which
was signed in Washington, D.C., United States, on 2 December, 1946 to ʻprovide for the proper conservation ofwhale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.ʼ One of the importantcomponents of the IWC is the Scientiﬁc Committee (SC),which meets annually.
The 2019 meeting of the IWC SC was held at the Safari Park Hotel & Casino, Nairobi, Kenya from 10 to 23
May. A total of ten scientists from the ICR participated in
the meeting (Fujise, Kato, Pastene, Tamura, Matsuoka,Goto, Hakamada, Yasunaga, Taguchi and Takahashi).
They presented ﬁve documents at plenary sessions, ﬁve

In 2019, ICR scientists also participated in the FirstIntersessional Workshop on the Implementation Reviewfor western North Paciﬁc common minke whales, held atthe Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ)ʼs Crew House, Tokyo,
Japan from 25 February to 1 March. Pastene, Goto, Hakamada, Taguchi, Inoue and Takahashi from the ICR participated in the workshop
The report of this meeting can be found in the websiteof the IWC (https://iwc.int/home).

Annual meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources—
Working Group on Ecosystem Monitoring andManagement (CCAMLR-EMM)
The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources (CCAMLR) is part of the Antarctic Treaty
System. The Convention was opened for signature on
1 August 1980 and entered into force on 7 April 1982
thereby establishing the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The goal is topreserve marine life and environmental integrity in and59

Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2019)near Antarctica. It was established in large part in response to concerns that an increase in krill catches in theSouthern Ocean could have a serious impact on populations of other marine life which are dependent upon krillfor food. The CCAMLR has a Scientiﬁc Committee andseveral Working Groups including the Working Group onEcosystem Monitoring and Management (EMM), whichmeet annually.
The 2019 meeting of the CCAMLR-EMM was held at
the Concarneau Marine Station, Concarneau, Francefrom 24 June to 5 July. One scientist from ICR participatedin the meeting (Pastene). He presented the documents
ʻDistribution and possible areas of spatial mixing of twostocks of humpback whales, a krill predator, in the IndoPaciﬁc region of the Antarctic revealed by genetic analysesʼ and ʻOutline of a research program to investigate
the abundance, abundance trends and stock structure oflarge whales in the Indo-Paciﬁc region of the Antarctic,including a survey plan for the 2019/20 austral summer
season.ʼ The presentations of these documents weremade under the agenda item ʻKrill predator biology, ecology and population dynamics.ʼ
The report of the meeting can be found in the websiteof the CCAMLR (https://www.ccamlr.org/).

Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Economic andSocial Development, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry,Corporate Services, Human Resources and Finance andTechnical Cooperation.
The Expert Meeting to ʻDevelop technical guidelines toreduce bycatch of marine mammals in capture ﬁsheriesʼ
was held at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy on 17-19
September 2019. Twenty-nine ﬁsheries and bycatch experts and observers from FAO Members participated in
the Meeting: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile,Denmark, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russian Federation,
Sweden, and the United States of America. The meeting
was also attended by experts from various regional andinternational organizations: Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES),International Whaling Commission (IWC), North AtlanticMarine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO), and NGOs,including Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Whale andDolphin Conservation (WDC), and the World Wildlife
Fund (WWF). Kato, Advisor of ICR, participated in themeeting as an expert.
The report of the meeting can be found in the websiteof FAO (http://www.fao.org/home/en/).

Concarneau Marine Station, Concarneau, France.

FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy.

FAO Expert Meeting to Develop Technical Guidelines to Reduce Bycatch of Marine Mammals

Annual meeting of the North Paciﬁc Marine
Science Organization (PICES)The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nationsthat leads international eﬀorts to defeat hunger. The FAO
was formed on 16 October 1945 and has its headquarters
in Rome, Italy. As of August 2018, the FAO has 197 member states. The agency is directed by the Conference ofMember Nations, which meets every two years. The Conference elects a council of 49 member states that acts as
an interim governing body, and the Director-General, thatheads the agency. FAO is composed of six departments:

The North Paciﬁc Marine Science Organization (PICES) isan intergovernmental science organization establishedin 1992 to promote and coordinate marine scientiﬁc research in the North Paciﬁc Ocean and its adjacent seas,
and to provide a mechanism for information and dataexchange among scientists in its member countries. Itspresent members are Canada, Japan, Peopleʼs Republic ofChina, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and theUnited States of America.
The 2019 meeting of the PICES was held at the Victoria,

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Participation of scientists of the Institute of Cetacean Research in International Meetings in 2019

BC, Canada from 16 to 27 October. One scientist from ICR
participated in the meeting (Tamura). He presented thestudy ʻEstimation of prey consumption by marine mammals in the PICES regions -Update of Hunt et al. (2000)-ʼ
as an oral presentation at the session ʻImplications of Prey
Consumption by Marine Birds, Mammals, and Fish in theNorth Paciﬁc.ʼ Konishi, Matsuoka and Hakamada wereco-author in this study. Tamura, Hakamada and Matsuoka
were co-authors of another study ʻSpatial estimation ofprey consumption by sei, Brydeʼs and common minke
whales in the western North Paciﬁc during the summersof 2008–2009: Density surface model approach,ʼ that wasalso presented at the same session.
The report of the meeting can be found in the website
of PICES (https://meetings.pices.int/).

and stock structure of large whales in the Indo-Paciﬁcregion of the Antarctic (JASS-A).
The report of the meeting can be found in the websiteof NAMMCO (https://nammco.no/).

Tórshavn Marina, Faroe Islands.

19th World Marine Mammal Conference
Victoria Conference Centre, Victoria, Canada.

Annual meeting of the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) Scientiﬁc
Committee (SC)The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission(NAMMCO) is an international body for cooperation on
the conservation, management and study of marinemammals in the North Atlantic. The NAMMCO Agreement was signed in Nuuk, Greenland on 9 April 1992 byNorway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, andentered into force on 8 July 1992. The agreement focuseson modern approaches to the study of the marine ecosystem as a whole, and to better understanding the roleof marine mammals in the ecosystem. NAMMCO has a
Scientiﬁc Committee (SC) which meets annually.
The 2019 NAMMCO SC meeting was held at TórshavnMarina, Faroe Islands from 29 October to 1 November.
Three scientists from ICR participated in the meeting(Pastene, Isoda and Taguchi) as observers from Japan.
They presented the 2017–2019 Japan progress reporton cetacean research as well an outline of the research
program to investigate the abundance, abundance trends

The World Marine Mammal Conference (WMMC) is a
joint conference between the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) and the European Cetacean Society (ECS).
The ECS was founded in January 1987 with the aim topromote and advance the scientiﬁc studies and conservation eﬀorts of marine mammals and disseminate
information about them to the society and the public.
The ECS convenes once a year in a European country,
alternating between southern and northern Europe asmuch as possible, with invited international authorities.
The SMM was founded in 1981 and is the largest international association of marine mammal scientists in theworld. The mission of the SMM is to promote the global
advancement of marine mammal science and contributeto its relevance and impact in education, conservationand management.
The 19th WMMC was held at the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain from 7–12 December 2019. Two scientists
from the ICR participated in the conference (Konishi andTakahashi) presenting the studies ʻChanges in sei whale
feeding habits in response to ﬁsh species replacement in
the western North Paciﬁc during 2002–2018,ʼ and ʻA com61

Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2019)

parison of the diet composition derived from skin stable
isotopes and stomach contents for two baleen whale species: sei and Brydeʼs whales in the western North Paciﬁcʼ
as posters at the session ʻForaging Ecology.ʼ
Konishi, Tamura and Bando were co-authors of thestudy ʻTracing life history of immature Antarctic minke
whales: stable isotope oscillation in baleen revealed ontogenetic diet shifts and seasonal migration,ʼ presented
as a poster at the session ʻForaging Ecology.ʼ Matsuoka
was co-author of the studies ʻEstimation of population dynamics for the Antarctic blue whale using Bayesian statespace modelsʼ and ʻEstimation of relationship between
density surface of humpback whales and environmental
factors in the North Paciﬁc ocean using IWC-POWER
data,ʼ presented as posters at the session ʻPopulation
Biology and Abundanceʼ and ʻHabitat and Distribution.ʼ
Katsumata and Kato submitted the study ʻExpansion of
wintering ground of the humpback whales in the North
Paciﬁc: Beginning of the seasonal migration to around
Hachijo Island, Izu Archipelago,ʼ which was presented asa poster at the session ʻHabitat and Distribution.ʼ

ʻEcopath 35 Years—Making Ecosystem-BasedManagement Operationalʼ ConferenceThis conference and associated workshops was held at
the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, St. Petersburg,
Florida, USA from 4 to 11 December 2019, to showcase
35 years of progress using the Ecopath approach in ﬁelds
such as ﬁsheries management, marine conservation, ecosystem dynamics, climate impacts, and ecosystem-based
management, as well as to introduce new aspects of theapproach.
Tamura and Hakamada were the co-authors of a contributing study presented to the conference titled ʻEcosystem modeling in the western North Paciﬁc from 1994
to 2013 using Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) with focus onforage ﬁsh and baleen whales.ʼ

The Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Florida,USA.

The Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB),
Barcelona, Spain.

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