-17- 



the whale was stripped of blubber and bone and the carcass 

 left to rot (not until 1950 was the meat also utilized; 

 Gulland, 1976a) . 



Whaling records provide valuable scientific data on 

 whale populations. Figure 4 shows catch rates of blue, fin, 

 humpback, sei, sperm, and smaller whales since 1904 (Everson, 

 1977) . Rorqual catch effort over time proceeded along a 

 size gradient; blue whales were first caught, fin whales 

 next, and so forth. Of course, intensive single species 

 harvests had devastating effects on whale stocks. Moreover, 

 efficient whaling fleets were flooding the market with oil, 

 drastically reducing its price. Regulating oil production 

 would also regulate oil prices, so in 1930 Norway and Britian 

 restricted the annual whale kill to a set amount of oil 

 production per year. 



Following the decline of whaling during the Second 

 World War, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was 

 established in 1946 to monitor and regulate whaling efforts. 

 It established the Blue Whale Unit (BWU) and limited the 

 world's annual catch to 16,000 BWU, a limit based on "an 

 inspired guess" (Gulland, 1976a) . (One BWU is the equivalent 

 of 2 fin whales, 2.5 humpback whales, or 6 sei whales.) 

 Signatory countries outlined regulations to: 1) regulate the 

 length of the hunting season, 2) establish minimum lengths, 

 3) protect females with suckling calves, 4) partially protect 

 the humpback whale, and 5) totally protect the southern 

 right whale (by this time no longer an economically attractive 

 target). However, since national quotas were not assigned, 

 whalers sought the biggest whales first - before other 

 nations filled the world quotas. Although total catch was 

 reduced, the quota was too high and the already diminished 

 stocks of blue, fin, and humpback whales continued to 

 decline. National quotas were finally established in 1960. 

 In 1964, a committee of three scientists met to determine 

 optimum catch levels for each species. Based on their 

 efforts in 1965, the IWC established more conservative 

 maximum sustainable yield (MSY) values for each species, 

 regulated quotas by areas within a species' distribution, 

 and provided a means of checking other nations' kill rates. 



Today the IWC is a more effective body in scientifically 

 managing whale resources. In the past, even when improved 

 data became available, many of its efforts to conserve whale 

 stocks were unsuccessful due to the political power of the 

 whaling industry. Trying to impose management regulations 

 upon a capital-intensive industry which developed free of 

 such restraints has been demonstrated to be quite difficult. 

 Such examples point to the need for the establishment of 

 conservation and management regimes prior to and during the 

 development of exploitation industries. 



