Flannery worried about small fish, not big whale culls

Sydney Morning Herald 31 Dec 07;

Environmentalist and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery believes the Japanese cull of 1000 whales is sustainable.

Professor Flannery told News Ltd newspapers the greater concern for marine life and biodiversity was with krill and small crustaceans, which were essential in the marine food chain.

Krill populations are declining as a result of over-fishing and rising sea temperatures killing off their food sources.

Professor Flannery was more concerned with issues about which the future was most under threat. He said Japan's plans to kill 935 minke whales each year would not threaten the species.

"In terms of sustainability, you can't be sure that the Japanese whaling is entirely unsustainable," he said. "It's hard to imagine that the whaling would lead to a new decline in population."

The influential scientist said he was relieved Japan had scrapped plans to kill up to 50 threatened humpbacks this year, but was worried about how whales were slaughtered and would like to see them "killed as humanely a possible".

Professor Flannery's views have not changed since 2003 when he argued in a journal that smaller-brained whales, such as minkes, could be hunted sustainably.- AAP

Flannery's views on whales 'curious'
Sydney Morning Herald 31 Dec 07

The crew of a protest ship searching for Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic have described as "curious" claims by prominent scientist Tim Flannery that a sustainable whale cull is possible.

Professor Flannery - a principal research scientist at the Australian Museum in Sydney - said the current Japanese annual target of 935 minke whales was possibly entirely sustainable.

He said there were more important environmental concerns in the Antarctic including fishing pressure on low-end food sources such as krill.

The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has now arrived in the iceberg zone and is searching for the whaling fleet.

Esperanza media officer Dave Walsh said crew members had discussed Professor Flannery's comments on Monday and were generally puzzled by them.

"Given the Japanese government's stated objectives in their science program...is to restart commercial whaling and one of the target species is an endangered species and they have doubled their quota in the last few years... shows they have no interest in sustainability," Mr Walsh told AAP.

"It's just a matter of killing as many as they can.

"There's nothing there to show any plan forward for a sustainable hunt.

"(Professor Flannery) was talking in particular about a sustainable minke population in terms of the sustainable hunt.

"But at the moment there are no agreed figures for the population.

"You can't claim to do a sustainable hunt of a population that is unknown."

He said the whales were already under pressure from hazards including impact with ships and pollution.

"It was so unexpected in seemed to be a curious statement to make," Mr Walsh said.

"He did mention that there aren't any humpbacks being killed.

"The fact of the matter is 50 of the whales being targeted are in fact endangered - fin whales, the second largest living animal.

"It seemed to us to be a strange statement to make."

Mr Walsh said Esperanza was in sight of icebergs inside Antarctic waters.

"We're starting our search now, starting a search pattern through the whaling areas," he said.

"They don't want us to know where they are and until we find them, we don't want them to know where we are either."

The Japanese Whaling Association (JWA) on Friday responded to criticism from the Australian government that there was no credible scientific justification for the hunting of whales.

"In the proper context of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) and the International Whaling Commission, these comments of the government of Australia are provocative and absurd," JWA president Keiichi Nakajima said.

"The fact is that the ICRW is about properly managing the whaling industry by regulating catch quotas at levels so that whale stocks will not be diminished.

"The convention is not about protecting all whales irrespective of their abundance."