(from "ISANA" No. 6, 1992)

Richard Frank
Attorney Law, Former United States Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission

By contrast, Americans consume more mammals than do people in other countries. The average Americans eat about five to six times as much beef as does the average Japanese.

Why, one might ask, is there this paradox? Why do Americans have such strong feeling about marine mammals? And are these emotional feelings benign or do they cause problems?

Most Americans, if asked today, would say that many marine mammals, and all whales, are endangered, a feeling fostered in part by misleading information of some animal rights groups, and that they should be protected for that reason. It is true that many countries, like the United States and Japan, over-exploited some whale and other marine mammal stocks. U.S. whalers, for example, slaughtered untold numbers of the bowhead whale, making it perhaps the most endangered stock in the world today. Tuna fishermen, in the United States and other countries, fished on porpoises in ways that harmed those stocks.

But as scientists know and the statistics show, due to strict international conservation measures, some whale stocks are back to their original levels and quite healthy and others are on the way. These include the gray whale off the United States and the minke whale in Antarctica.

Many people believe that marine mammals are special. Their intelligence is thought to be higher, based in part on brain size, and their capacity to interact with humans is considered different. Many, like fur seal pups of the Arctic, are cute and attractive. From this comes a feeling that marine mammals have a unique status in the animal hierarchy, and humans have an ethical obligation not to harvest them.

A special feeling toward a type of animal is not unusual either in the U.S. or abroad. Some in the U.S. have similar emotions about land animals like elephants. Hindus consider cows sacred and allow them a leisurely life. In some parts of Japan, like the ancient city of Nara or the Island of Kinkazan, deer are protected because of their special role in religion as God's messengers. Around the world, one can find in every continent and in many countries and in most religions a special relationship toward particular species of animals.

No one questions the appropriateness and right of a society or religion to hold these feelings. But a problem arises when one group attempts to impose its ethical, moral, or religious beliefs on others. Hindus do not insist that others stop eating meat (even in India). But Americans, with a missionary zeal, want to impose their subjective animal beliefs on other societies. This cultural imperialism leads to unscientific and environmentally bad policies and, as implemented, is often discriminatory.

Many scientists now believe that resources should be managed on a multi-species ecosystem basis, that is, with regard to all species and their interactions not just the species being harvested. But as noted by William Aron, Director of a major marine science center of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "providing protection for only one element of the system (for example marine mammals) leads to an inevitable imbalance and increasingly unstable systems."

To the extent a society or country does not utilize marine mammals as a food resource but wants meat, then an alternative source of meat invariably is land animals. Americans eat five times as much meat as fish but consume no marine mammals. Cattle consumption is worse environmentally than is marine mammal consumption. Cattle raising is a key factor in the destruction of rain forests in Latin America and the range land in the United States. The over a billion of cud chewing animals in the world are responsible for over 10% of the methane emitted into the atmosphere, which in turn contributes to the global warming problem. Human consumption of meat is inefficient. Cattle consume more than 70% of the grain produced in the United States and about a third of the world's total grain harvest. If one is concerned about feeding the people of the world, then the order of preference would be the consumption of grain first and fish or marine mammals second and land meat last.

U.S. feelings about marine mammals, like most subjective feelings not based on science, is applied with discrimination against foreigners. The U.S. opposes the harvest of whales abroad, even whale stocks that are plentiful. But the U.S. says that U.S. eskimos ought to harvest bowhead whales, the most endangered stock in the world, because of alleged special circumstances. To be sure, the historical significance of whales to eskimos and their diet is significant. But other countries and cultures also have special considerations. The one very special condition that applies to eskimos is, of course, that they are American.

Americans outlaw the takings of porpoises. But an exception allows some takings by U.S. tuna fleets because of their needs. Americans feel justified in banning imports from other countries which do not outlaw porpoises taking, even in international waters. The U.S. allots to others, like Mexico, the same exception, but the Mexicans are told, after the season is over, how many porpoises they can take since that number is the number the Americans already caught.

The feelings toward marine mammals by Americans will change as they learn that many marine mammals are not endangered, as land becomes more precious, as the world's population grows, as food resources become more scarce, and as the concern about feeding the starving increases.

This is not to say that the U.S., if it chooses, should not have emotional ties toward marine mammals, reject their use as a U.S. resource, and pay the price for that protectionism. It is to say, however, that Americans will have less legitimate reason to impose their subjective views on the other societies of the world.

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