13. Review of Previous Season's Catch
(from "Chairman's Report of the Thirteenth Meeting")
In his report to the Commission on the statistics of the last season's
catches, Mr. Vangstein said that the Bureau of International Whaling
Statistics had not received information from all the expeditions concerned in
sufficient time to provide an analysis for use at the Commission's meeting.
As a consequence the Scientific Committee had been unable to draw certain
conclusions it required from the available statistics of the previous
season's catches.
The Bureau required at least a month to prepare its analysis, but this season
some information had not been available until the middle of June.
With a number of expeditions whaling until the closing date of the season on
7th April, it was understood that it would be difficult for all expeditions to
provide reports to the Bureau at least a month before the normal time of the
Commission's meeting in the third week of June, but that it should be possible
for all expedition reports to be sent to the Bureau not later than the end of
May.
In these circumstances and in order to give the Bureau time to produce its
analysis, it seemed to the Commission that its Annual Meeting might be put
back a little but not far enough to encroach on the 90 days notice necessary
for the operation of a Schedule amendment. As mentioned in Paragraph 25 below,
the commencing date for next year's meeting was in fact fixed for the 4th
July, 1962.
The Commission decided in addition that all member countries should be asked
to urge their expeditions to provide reports to the Bureau as early as
possible and in any case not later than the 31st May.
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