A Case For Killing Humpback Whales?
Correspondence: (Login to view email address)
- Australian Centre for Applied Marine Mammal Science, Australian Antarctic Division, Channel Highway, Kingston, Tasmania 7050, Australia
- National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115 USA
- Marine Mammal Institute and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, 2030 SE Marine Science Dr, Newport, Oregon 97365 USA
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- Document Type:
- Manuscript
- Date:
- Received 12 November 2007 23:12 UTC; Posted 13 November 2007
- Subjects:
- Earth & Environment
- Abstract:
During the austral summer of 2007/08, hunting of Southern Hemisphere (SH) humpback whales will recommence after almost half a century of protection. The stated rationale for this hunt, by the Government of Japan (GoJ), is to gather important scientific information for use in management. If the scientific need were defensible, and the proponents had accommodated reasonable conservation concerns, then criticisms of the hunt would be limited to philosophical issues. This is not the case. The program’s research objectives are unlikely to be achieved by lethal methods and do not address the principal research needs for SH humpback whales identified by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Discussion
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11 votes
- Comments:
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2 comments
On Radio 4 this morning a spokesperson for the “cull” said that 1000 humpbacks were required to sample the population to have statistically significant data. I’m not a statistician, so I’m asking anybody out there who is familiar with the subject, is that true? Do you really need to kill (oh sorry, sample) that many whales to find statistically significant effects on a population?
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Additional information
- License:
- This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
- How to cite this document:
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Gales, Nicholas, Clapham, Phillip, and Baker, C. Scott. A Case For Killing Humpback Whales?. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2007.1313.1> (2007)
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Fern Holland on 16 November 2007 02:57 UTC
An approximate age of a living whale is better than the exact age of dead whale! Maybe we need to re evaluate the criteria for “science”. Focus on real science, and let these populations recover!