338 



Thus, it is declared to be the public policy of the United States "to 

 protect all ocean mammals from harassment or slaughter"; and, m 

 addition, to enter into negotiations with foreign governments and 

 through interested international organizations "with a view to ob- 

 taining a worldwide ban on the further slaughter of ocean mammals. 



Title II of the Ocean Mammal Protection Act of 1971 sets up the 

 prohibitions which will help achieve the end to the slaughter which 

 now occurs. Section 202 (a) bars, first, the taking of ocean mammals 

 by persons or vessels subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; 

 se<?ond, the use of any port, harbor, or other place for any purpose 

 connected in any way with such taking ; and third, the transportation, 

 importation, offering for sale, or possession of ocean mammals or parts 



thereof. . 



Section 203 (a) properly makes exception for the indigenous popu- 

 lations along the ocean coasts— that is, Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos— 

 to take ocean mammals for their own use but not for sale. Thus, the 

 Ocean Mammal Protection Act in no way seeks to destroy the native 

 cultures which have developed the hunting of ocean mammals and 

 the use of the products obtained from these mammals, as a part of 

 their way of life. 



Additional provisions of title II provide strong penalty provisions, 

 which are, I believe, essential to make this legislation more than just 

 compassionate rhetoric. 



Why must this legislation be enacted? First, let me discuss the 

 slaughter which we, along with other nations of the world, have con- 

 ducted against whales. The whales are among creation's most intelli- 

 gent creatures. They communicate with each other, using numerous 

 sounds in their language. They demonstrate an intense loyalty to each 

 other, so that a school of whales will beach itself and thereby com- 

 mit mass self-destruction in its efforts to come to the aid of a captured 

 or beached brother. Certainly, man's rapaciousness in hunting down 

 these creatures cannot be condoned. We are involved, not in the ex- 

 termination of a vicious, disease-carrying animal such as the rat, but 

 rather, in the slaughter of a complex, intelligent and harmless animal 

 of the highest order. 



Wliat has man succeeded in doing? In December 1968, the Com- 

 mittee on Rare and Endangered Wildlife Species of the Department 

 of Interior's Bureau of S])ort Fisheries and Wildlife compiled a list of 

 "Rare and Endangered Fish and Wildlife of the United States." This 

 compilation listed 6 large whale species of just American waters which 

 are in jeopardy. Of the gray whale. 8,000 were estimated to be left 

 in the Califoniia herd, as of 1965. The compilation listed "perhaps a 

 few hundred in the Atlantic" as remaining of the blue whale, and 

 less than 1,500 in the Pacific herd. I^ess than 5,000 humpback whales 

 remained in the north Pacific. As for the Atlantic right whale, the 

 compilation stated that "possibly onlv a few hundred persist." The 

 same dire situation existed for the Pacific right whale. As for the 

 bowhead whale, there were an estimated 1,000 in the Bering-Chukchi- 

 Beaufort. Sea population, with lesser numbers elsew^here. 



The fat-e of the blue whale is a tragic object lesson of this pillage 

 which we have been committing upon nature. The blue whale is the 

 largest creature ever to inhabit the earth. An adult blue whale meas- 

 ures up to 98 feet long and weighs perhaps as much as 160 tons. Even 



