398 WHALES 



From all the above remarks, it is clear, once more, that the International 

 Whaling Statistics alone cannot tell us how many Fin Whales may be caught 

 annually without endangering the future of the industry. 



To arrive at the correct answer, we should have to know how many 

 animals there are, how many of them are killed annually, or die of natural 

 causes, and how many calves are born each year. It is only on the question 

 of how many are killed that the statistics tell us anything at all. 



The present whale population can be estimated by two methods: whale 

 marks and regional counts. If, say, a few thousand whales are marked 

 before the beginning of the season, and if, for instance, 5 per cent of the 

 catch marks are subsequently recovered, it might be reasonably assumed 

 that the few thousand marked animals represent 5 per cent of the total 

 population. However, quite apart from the fact that marking expeditions 

 cost a great deal of money, it is doubtful if this method does, in fact, lead 

 to reliable estimates, since the Antarctic population is not static (see 

 Chapter 12) and since many marks are overlooked during processing (see 

 p. 332). Thus Ruud estimates that the proportion of marks overlooked in 

 this way is 50 per cent, while Japanese sources put the figure at 25 per 

 cent, probably because the Japanese process the meat more thoroughly 

 than other people. 



The other method, i.e. direct covmts, is therefore much more promising. 

 Naturally, it is impossible to count every single whale, but regional counts 

 can, in fact, be made from ships and helicopters, and, by combining the 

 results from different representative areas, we may form a fair idea of the 

 total population. The leader of the British whaling research team, Dr 

 N. A. Mackintosh, and his collaborator, S. G. Brown, tried to use this 

 method in order to estimate the Fin Whale population before the Second 

 World War. They based their findings on regular observations made 

 aboard the Discovery II, which cruised through a number of Antarctic 

 regions from 1933-9. Making allowances for special conditions, both 

 biologists calculated that the maximum number of Fin Whales inhabiting 

 the Southern hemisphere at the time was 255,000. However, Symons (1956) 

 and Ruud (1956) have both advised great caution in accepting this 

 figure, since it is not known how systematically the Discovery II covered 

 the given area, how expert her observers were (and whaling observations 

 demand years of experience), and how many whales took to flight at the 

 ship's approach. During these six years the crew of the Discovery //actually 

 saw only 1,900 Fin Whales (or 315 per annum), i.e. the average number 

 captured by a single catcher during that time. Hence Mackintosh and 

 Brown's count was based on the observed presence of only 0-13 per cent 

 of the estimated total population - a clear indication that their count can, 

 at best, only give us an idea of the order of magnitude of the Fin Whale 



