International Whaling Commission

I mean, it's just a massacre, right? So, but people started paying attention.

And in 1973, the International Whaling Commission started basically putting, you know, putting the brakes on a lot of this commercial whaling.

And then even in 1987, the Soviet Union got on board too and abolished this commercial whaling.

So, I mean, it's, you know, people, So people paid attention, which is good.

As I mentioned, he came up with Uniform Health Services and did a lot of work there.

He also, and this is something I'm trying to chronicle with him right now, did a lot of work with Eben Hopson as the North Slope Borough was created and helping Eben sort of set up this system of borough local governance in that area, as well as the advocacy with the International Whaling Commission about how can the native peoples of the Circumpolar North continue to harvest land the whales that they have for time immemorial and how it can be managed well, including things like, you know, the feds would send people out on the ice to count the whales.

And my grandfather actually spent some time in the Navy and said, there's sonar nets.

Why don't we just try to get those records and maybe identify that way?

we start the show today with good news in the conservation and environmental space.

Researcher Professor Elsven Merlin, who we've spoken to several times on the show before, has made history by becoming the first South African appointed to a leadership position on the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee.

She's been involved in the crucial work of identifying individual whales returning to our coastline, sometimes 40 years after they were first photographed.

It's a really fascinating story.

And then obviously for South Africa, hopefully this puts an African voice a bit stronger on the scientific committee table beyond trying to make sure the scientific committee can function at its best under my leadership, making sure that obviously the African science is there and represented in the right strong way.

Let's talk a little bit about the commission itself.

I think a lot of people, when they hear the words International Whaling Commission, something in their brain goes, well, that's to do with monitoring and managing hunting of whales.

And we heard a lot about them when they were trying to manage the problem of whale numbers dwindling.

I haven't seen much success through lobbying.

You know, last year, Horst Kleinschmidt, who is the South African delegate to the International Whaling Commission and also vice secretary of the International Whaling Commission, resigned and joined Sea Shepherd and is now a Sea Shepherd South African director.

And his reasons for doing so is he says, we're not going to save the whales through the IWC.

The only thing that's going to save the whales is direct intervention.

and physically getting in there and shutting them down.

So when you have the Vice Secretary of the International Whaling Commission resigning to come join an activist organization, that's a pretty good indication that the traditional methods are not going to work.

So someone listening to this radio program who's coming to the same kind of conclusions, how can they get involved? What can they do to help?

Well, I think that the strength of any movement lies in diversity.

... and these ones aren't, and what have they got wrong? You know, what's the scientific community got wrong in this process and how do they fix that? Which I can say now that I've gone.

[laughs] I guess that's a, a pretty important message, you know? Step back, have a good look what we got wrong, and also, in fact, at the International Whaling Commission that came up with right whales.

We [laughs] we know what the problem is.

We know what's killing them.

So to the extent that we can, we'll try to identify at least what factors may be triggering this event and making it so massive.

Right whales got their name from whalers who'd considered them the right animals to hunt because they swam slowly, stayed close to shore, and floated when killed, according to the International Whaling Commission, a global body tasked with regulating whaling.

although illegal hunting continued into the nineteen seventies southern right whales have gradually rebounded since gaining international protection in nineteen thirty five but their recovery remains threatened by the same pressures facing whales worldwide declining food supplies, fishing gear entanglements, oil spills, and ship strikes.

If losses on this scale recur, they could slow the population's recovery.