Forty years after whaling was banned, threats remain

International Whaling Commission to discuss continued threats to whales In short: Hobart will host the International Whaling Commission this week, as the group celebrates 80 years since its founding. The 2026 meeting will consider a 25-year push to establish a whale protection zone. What's next? Climate change, ongoing human activity, and krill fishing in Antarctica remain challenges, despite a rebound in whale numbers since 1986. Australians love watching whales from tourist boats that follow humpbacks off the east coast or spying on southern right whales from the natural vantage point on the cliffs at the head of the Great Australian Bight. The recovery of some species from near extinction around Australia and the world is a success, thanks to the moratorium on commercial whaling that started 40 years ago. "That's been one of the single most effective actions in the biological world that we've seen," International Whaling Commission (IWC) chairman Nick Gales said. "We've seen whales recover from desperately low numbers to some populations recovering right the way back to pre-whaling days." The anniversary will be marked at the 70th meeting of the IWC in Hobart this week, with 300 delegates from 63 countries in attendance, including government representatives, scientists and observers. The event will also coincide with the IWC's 80th anniversary. It was established in 1946 with the signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. When the convention started, commercial whaling was "an existential threat", with some species close to extinction as they were hunted for oil and baleen. Population crashes prompted the IWC to introduce protections in the 1960s, along with a full ban on commercial whaling in 1986. Whales face other human threats since ban Australia currently chairs the commission; former Antarctic scientist Dr Gales holds the role and will oversee the Hobart event. Dr Gales was a witness for Australia during its 2014 successful International Court of Justice case against Japan's Southern Ocean whaling program. He said whales today faced threats not envisaged eight decades ago, but still caused by humans. "Fisheries bycatch, ship-strike, entanglement in nets and noise pollution and some of these threatening processes weren't really known about or recognised then,"Dr Gales said. The 2026 meeting will consider a Hobart declaration acknowledging the various anniversaries, turbulent challenges, and a future vision for the IWC. There are 89 member countries, after Japan withdrew in 2019 to resume commercial whaling. The IWC governs through consensus and can resolve differences through a membership vote. South Atlantic whale sanctuary under consideration The Hobart meeting will consider a 25-year push led by South and Central American nations to set up a protection zone called the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary. Loading..."The waters off to the east of the South American continent would be included in that, and it would join up to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, which is an existing IWC sanctuary, which runs all the way around Antarctica, so it would be an enormous area," Dr Gales said. To succeed, three-quarters of delegates would need to vote in favour as the proposal requires a change to the whaling convention. Whale scientist Vanessa Pirotta said the IWC had been important, and Australia had achieved much in terms of conservation, but climate change, ongoing human activity and krill fishing in Antarctica remained challenges. "This meeting is happening now as the bulk of the east and west coast humpback whales are returning to Antarctica," Dr Pirotta said. "I just hope that krill is at the forefront of a lot of these conversations, because these animals are a keystone species and these whales are reliant on their presence so that they can eat them." Dr Gales said the IWC's scientific committee worked closely with other governmental organisations to protect whales and their food source, krill. "The scientific committee can provide a huge amount of knowledge on where whale populations are at in terms of recovery, their distribution and their behaviour. "Efforts to manage the krill fishery, in particular, the responsibility sits with the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which is part of the Antarctic Treaty System. "The IWC works closely with CCAMLR, which has expert knowledge on krill and other predators in the system and brings the whale expertise to them. From there, decisions around krill can be made, which take account of the whales as consumers." Dr Gales said while whaling had declined, the threats had not. "Whaling is a tiny percentage, probably less than 1 per cent, of the highs of the industrial whaling era," he said. "But the threats to whales are no less serious; in fact, existential in lots of ways as we change the oceans so radically with our activities."