of whales were set as follows for the 1987 aboriginal whaling 

 seasons: 12 minke whales from the central Atlantic stock; 10 

 fin whales from the West Greenland stock; zero humpback 

 whales from the West Greenland stock; and 179 gray whales 

 from the eastern Pacific stock. 



Comprehensive Assessment — With respect to the compre- 

 hensive assessment, the IWC reviewed the report of the 

 special meeting of the Scientific Committee held on 

 7-11 April 1986 and the relevant sections of the report of 

 the Scientific Committee's annual meeting. The IWC accepted 

 the Scientific Committee's outline proposals for future work 

 on the comprehensive assessment and its work plan for 

 1986/1987. The latter includes: conducting an inventory of 

 data; further encoding of data by the Secretariat and 

 monitoring studies such as the International Decade of 

 Cetacean Research surveys in the Antarctic; conducting two 

 workshops (on the scientific aspects of alternative manage- 

 ment procedures and catch per unit of effort data) ; and 

 carrying out three reviews on (a) cytogenetic and biochemical 

 techniques for examining stock identity, (b) census tech- 

 niques, and (c) mark-recapture techniques. The IWC also 

 agreed that a joint Scientific and Technical Committee 

 working group meeting on the comprehensive assessment should 

 be held during the week prior to the 1987 IWC Annual Meeting. 



Special Permits for Scientific Research — Article VII 

 of the Whaling Convention provides that any member nation may 

 grant a special permit to its citizens to take whales for 

 purposes of scientific research and that the whales taken may 

 be processed and sold in accordance with that party govern- 

 ment's directions. Party governments, however, must provide 

 the IWC and its Scientific Committee an opportunity to review 

 proposed special permits, which must include certain informa- 

 tion concerning proposed activities. During the 1986 

 meeting, the IWC considered and adopted a resolution pertain- 

 ing to the issuance of special permits for scientific 

 research and reviewed proposed special permits submitted by 

 the Governments of Iceland and the Republic of Korea. 



With respect to the former matter, a working group was 

 established by the IWC to consider a proposed resolution put 

 forward by the Government of Sweden to define parameters for 

 conducting scientific research under special permits and to 

 establish guidelines for international trade in products 

 derived from whales taken during research activities. After 

 considerable discussion, the IWC adopted a revised resolution 

 which, among other things, calls upon party governments to: 

 comply with guidelines for research developed by the Scien- 

 tific Committee; take into account whether research objec- 

 tives can be achieved through non-lethal research techniques 

 and whether the resulting information will contribute to the 



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