(from "Chairman's Report of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting")

Fin Whales
The Technical Committee considered the Scientific Committee's estimate of 3,200 animals as the sustainable yield of fin whales and the present estimate that stock level is about 35-40 per cent of the number that would produce the maximum sustainable yield, and proposed by majority vote that the catch limit should be 2,000 whales. The Commission voted eight in favour of this proposal and four against with two abstentions. This did not result in a three-fourths majority of those casting a vote, as required by the Commission's Rules of Procedure for amendments to the Schedule, and the proposal was declared not carried. A proposal by the United States delegation seconded by the delegation of Mexico and the United Kingdom that the catch limit should be 1,800 fin whales was similarly defeated, the votes being eight in favour and three against with three delegations abstaining. A proposal that the catch limit should be 1,950 fin whales moved by the Soviet Union delegation and seconded by the Japanese delegation was accepted by twelve votes in favour and two abstentions after those delegations had confirmed their willingness to accept on the basis of a Scientific Committee recommendation a further reduction in the fin whale limit in the 1973/74 season. The Norwegian Commissioner indicated that Norway would not be taking its full share of the global quota for Antarctic fin whales in the forthcoming season.

Sei Whales
The Scientific Committee estimated that the population of sei whales in the Antarctic was about at the level which would produce the maximum sustainable yield of 5,000. The Technical Committee's recommendation that the catch limit for the 1972/73 season should be 5,000 sei whales was adopted on the motion of the Chairman of that Committee seconded by the Japanese and Soviet Union delegations.

Minke Whales
The Scientific Committee reported that it believed its preliminary estimate made in 1971 of 150-200,000 minke whales in the Antarctic may be too low and that a maximum sustainable yield estimate of 5,000 was also low. The Commission accepted the Technical Committee's recommendation that a catch limit of 5,000 minke whales be established for the Antarctic.

To provide for these catch limits by species the Schedule was amended as follows:

Paragraph 8(a) "2,300" blue whale units in 1971/72" deleted and "1,950 fin whales, 5,000 sei and Bryde's whales combined and 5,000 minke whales in 1972/73" inserted.
Paragraph 8(b) deleted.
Paragraph 8(c) renumbered 8(b) "blue whale units" deleted from the third line and "fin, sei, Bryde's and minke whales" added, and in the fifth and eighth lines "each of these species" substituted for "blue whale units".
Paragraph 8(d) renumbered 8(c), "each of these species" substituted for "whales" in the fourth line.

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