22. HUMANE KILLING
(from "Chairman's Report of the Twenty-Ninth Meeting")
(a) Report by Secretary
Government responses to the Secretary's enquiries on this matter had been
disappointing, due to lack of a promising alternative to the explosive harpoon.
The Scientific Committee had considered a number of documents on the subject
and it appeared that the use of high velocity projectiles and drugs should be
further investigated.
South Africa intended to experiment with the use of drugs if a suitable
cetacean stranding occurred.
The Scientific Committee also observed that a legal requirement to report the
number of harpoons used to kill a whale could lead to the use of other, less
humane, methods of killing whales.
It suggested that it might be more useful to monitor the use of cold grenades.
After some discussion the Commission agreed that:
- (1)
- All members of the Commission should, within three months, send references
to published and unpublished reports of humane killing experiments and
practices to Dr E.D. Mitchell of Canada for inclusion in an annotated, indexed
bibliography which he and J. Seiler are preparing.
This document should be available to the 1978 meetings of the Scientific
Committee and the Commission.
- (2)
- The Commission should, at its 1978 meeting, develop a specific programme
of research based on the resulting recommendations of the Scientific Committee.
This overall programme may include experimental trials and individual
countries could defer carrying out such trials until the Commission has
developed its research programme.
The Commission noted that Australia and Iceland offered to participate in such
research.
Japan pointed out that the use of drugs would have to take account of the
utilisation of whale meat as human food.
(b) Data collection
The Commission agreed that data gathering on the number of whales struck but
lost by native peoples and information on the time to death and consistency of
force generated in all whaling operations should commence immediately if
possible.
These data would be reviewed next year together with further consideration on
the value of receiving reports on the number of harpoons used to kill each
whale by commercial operations, in the overall context of development of the
Commission's research programme on humane killing.
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