A Whale of a Failure

Whales are gentle, playful creatures with enormous brains and extraordinary hearing. According to Cetologist Roger S. Payne of the New York Zoological Society, whales communicate with one another by "singing" at deep submarine frequencies, sounding like sitar concertos. Other scientists are trying to discover how whales can dive to 7,000 ft., where the pressure would compress a human lungful of air to a thin fluid, and then resurface with no ill effects. But for all their mystery, whales have interested men mainly because they have oil within their hulks. In the past decade alone, 607,000 have been slaughtered, mostly by the Japanese and Russians. If the pace keeps up much longer, the whale is assured of the same fate as the dodo.

Conservationists look to the 14-nation* International Whaling Commission to regulate the $150 million industry and reduce the slaughter. But last week, after a long conference in London, the agency issued a communique that drowned all hopes. Instead of lowering the limits on each year's whale kill, the commission decided to maintain the already absurdly high quotas.

Reckless Harvest. Even worse, quotas for the rich Antarctic waters continue to be based on the average amount of oil in a blue whale. Blues are the largest whales, often growing to 100 ft. in length and weighing 150 tons. Each contains as much oil as two fin whales, 2 1/2 humpback whales or six sei whales. The net effect of measuring quotas in oil rather than individual species is that whaling expeditions kill everything that spouts; even the smallest whale has value. This year's Antarctic quota of 2,700 "blue-whale units" will cause more little whales to be killed than ever. The big blues and humpbacks, temporarily "protected" from hunters, are already as rare as whalebone corsets.

The commission did set limits on hunting individual species in the North Pacific, where whalers claim stocks are not yet seriously depleted. Even so, the new limit on sperm whales is totally unrealistic. Working from extremely accurate data, scientists estimate that no more than 4,000 sperm whales can be harvested in 1970 without danger to the species. The commission is permitting 13,551 to be killed.

Iron Laws. Why does the commission condone such overexploitation? Explains Ray Gambell, scientific adviser to the British delegation: "There seemed no point in registering a vote against the high quotas. Otherwise, the whaling nations would just go and do what they wanted without taking heed of any restrictions at all, which would be much worse." As it is, the major whalers--particularly the Russians--steadfastly refuse to allow international observers to inspect their operations, so no one is sure that quotas are not sometimes exceeded.

Where international conservation efforts have patently failed, the iron laws of economics might succeed in saving leviathan. Only rich nations can afford whaling fleets, equipped with sonar, explosive harpoons and factory ships. But as the standard of living rises in those nations, the demand for whale products drops. In recent years, the number of factory ships has declined from 220 to 80. Moreover, at the enlightened urging of Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel, the U.S. last month placed most whales on the official "endangered species" list. Whale products are now forbidden in the U.S., thus erasing about 20% of the world market. The United Kingdom, France and other wealthy nations might well follow suit. After all, whales are processed into margarine, soap, hand cream, suntan oil, lipstick, paint dryer, cat and dog food, shoe polish and fertilizer. There are readily available substitutes for all these uses.

*Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Panama, South Africa, U.K., U.S. and U.S.S.R.

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