OPINION: Whale watching industry under threat

In a break with tradition, the commission jointly funded, with the Australian government, the workshop with operators from more than 20 countries attending to  help develop an online handbook to facilitate companies who might wish to start a commercial whale watching business.

This weighty organisation of 89 member countries was formed in 1946 to manage the world’s whale stocks, primarily for the development of the whaling industries of the world.

This mandate is now largely considered well out of step by most developed countries such as Australia, who have swapped the killing of whales for a newer and more sustainable industry: whale watching.

Whale watching is now worth $300million to Australia’s coastal tourism industry. Furthermore, the commission reported that, worldwide, whale watching returns more than  $2.2billion  and is conducted in more than 100 countries, states and territories. Compare this to the possible $300million raised by the three main whaling countries which remain: Norway, Iceland and Japan.

It is widely believed that Japan has encouraged a large number of countries to join the IWC as members by offering foreign aid assistance in return for aligning their vote on the whaling issue.

Australia is taking Japan to the international court in June and July to test  the legitimacy of the ‘‘scientific’’ nature of their whaling operations.

The  US chair of the International Whaling Commission, Ryan Wulff, is a very progressive man who is keen to develop whale watching around the world as the main  industry, and a legitimate alternative to  a return to whaling.  Many of the world’s whale stocks have recovered almost to the level of stocks after WWII.

A real concern for veteran whale scientists such as Dave Paton, of Blue Planet Marine, and whale watch operators around the coast, is that the moratorium on whaling in place since 1982 could lose traction at the next International Whaling Commission meeting in South Korea next year, marking a return to whaling.

No one really knows how whales would respond to boat approach if the whaling of humpbacks recommenced.

It has been more than 35 years since humpback whales have been in the harpoon sites in the southern hemisphere and the benign passage of over 17,000 whales expected this year might not be so predictable.

Most whales we see today have been born since the end of whaling in Australia in 1973 when only a few hundred whales were left.

Frank Future is the skipper for Imagine Cruises  at Port Stephens.