From the Readers

Don't be misled by Western media on Japan's whaling (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2010-06-25 16:42

Comment on "Report: Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans" (Agencies, June 25)

The Western media reports on Japan's whaling are fundamentally wrong. This could provide students of the media a case study on how the general public can be misled by the media in the USA, UK, Australia, NZ and some EU countries. I hope the media in China do some research on the subject and do not just repeat the story lines from these countries.

I have spent 40 years doing research on biological populations and whale populations in particular. I even participated in one of the monthlong meetings of the Working Group of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, IWC.

My scientific work can be found in my book, Management and Analysis of Biological Populations, Elsevier Press, NY, 1980.

Let's focus on Antarctica. The Blue whales are the largest whales and can grow up to 180 tons. The Minke are the smaller whales and grow up to 10 tons. Both feed on krill and shrimp. The fact that krill is the main food of Blue and Minke implies competition but scientists find it hard to describe precisely the intensity of this competition between the Blue and Minke whales.

The harpoon was invented in 1870, and from then the Blue whales were reduced from a population of over 200,000 to its present population of about 3,000. Altogether about 300,000 Blue whales were killed. During this time the Minke whale population increased but we do not know precisely by how much.

But there is an accurate and precise way to show that Minke whales were and are doing much better when the Blue whales were being destroyed. The age of sexual maturity of the Minke whales during this period decreased significantly.

The most worrying recent development is the research report of a team of British scientists published in the prestigious journal Nature in 2004. It showed that the food of these whales, the krill, has declined by more than 50% since the 1970s due to global warming, which reduced the ice cover needed by the krill. The krill feeds on the algae below the ice.

If you tell this story of the Blue whales, Minke whales and krill to any farmer and ask the farmer what to do he will say, we better take precautions and cull the Minke whales a bit. That is the logical and only way we humans can help the survival of the majestic Blue whales, which is in extreme danger of extinction.

At present we do not know precisely how many Minke whales there are in Antarctica, but all scientists will agree on is that it is between 200,000 and 900,000. At 200,000 Minke, it is very safe to cull 1,000 Minke a year in a feedback manner, and that is more than what the Japanese are doing.

Anyone who is concerned about the extinction of whales should focus on the Bowhead whales in the Arctic. Natives of the US and Russia are allowed to strike 67 times a year these Bowhead whales, which are the second largest whales after the Blue whales. I am against this permission by IWC, as I think the Bowhead is now under stress because of the decline of the krill population. The Bowhead at about 10,000 is only a small fraction of its population of over 200,000.

I hope this will help readers in China to be careful and not be misled by the Western media on Japan and whaling in Antarctica. Japan's whaling in the North Pacific is a different story.

My father suffered under the Japanese during World War II. I still believe the Japanese government should apologize for the atrocities of its soldiers against Chinese people in China and Southeast Asia. About 25% of Chinese people in Singapore alone were killed then. Thus I do not go out of my way to defend Japan. But on whaling in Antarctica, I think science is on the side of the Japanese.

B S Goh, on China Daily website