Bridget Vercoe: Whaling cop-out will bring an ocean of discontent

New Zealanders will surely object to funding "scientific" whaling ventures. Photo / Supplied

Bizarrely, New Zealand, whose priority has always been the conservation and protection of whales, is now considering supporting a deal which would see the ban on commercial whaling overturned in return for Japan reducing its so-called "scientific" whaling.

The proposal, discussed at a recent meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Florida, would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales if they agreed to reduce the total catch over the next 10 years.

Exactly how many whales will be allowed to be killed has yet to be determined, but it is likely to be more than 1500 a year.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's IWC Commissioner, who helped draft the deal, has publicly acknowledged that the proposal may be like "swallowing a dead rat" for many New Zealanders.

Support of a deal which condones whaling is a huge policy shift for New Zealand, a country which has long prided itself on its strong anti-whaling stance.

Whales hold a special place in the hearts of many New Zealanders, with more than two-thirds of us opposing commercial whaling worldwide, according to a 2008 Neilsen Company poll.

One would expect, if New Zealand's position on this issue were to change, it should follow a rigorous public debate. Foreign Minister Murray McCully has stated that any compromise would be put to New Zealanders first before being endorsed at the June IWC meeting.

There has yet to be any mention of when this consultation will take place and how exactly the Government plans to seek our views on this important issue.

While we appreciate that many countries have invested considerable time and money into negotiating this deal over the last two years, it is difficult to see how it is an improvement on the status quo.

The deal at present before the IWC effectively lifts the moratorium, setting a dangerous and unprecedented endorsement of commercial whaling.

Even if time-bound, such a move would inevitably create an expectation within the whaling industry (and in countries watching from the sidelines) that further quotas would be forthcoming. This would effectively postpone the IWC's present deadlock to a later date.

It would also be impossible to guarantee that a package to benefit some IWC members in the short-term would not be used to open the floodgates in the future to other nations requesting coastal or "scientific" whaling quotas, and planning to trade in whale products, allowing this cruel and unnecessary industry to expand worldwide.

Even those involved in the negotiations have admitted that the deal on the table is littered with inconsistencies - keeping the moratorium in place but allowing commercial whaling, creating new sanctuaries but allowing whaling in existing ones.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this proposal is that it suggests that additional costs of monitoring and managing these whaling operations should be met by IWC members.

It's hard to imagine that New Zealand taxpayers would be happy to find themselves helping fund these cruel hunts.

Hunting whales is undeniably cruel. There is scientific evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale, with some whales taking an hour or even longer to die.

This begs the question: is it appropriate for an international body like the IWC to sanction a commercial meat production industry which slaughters fully conscious animals using explosive missiles?

Can a practice which so routinely causes intense and prolonged suffering to animals - simply to meet the dietary preferences of a dwindling fraction of society - ever be justified? We think not.

It is clear that if the New Zealand Government really cared about the welfare of whales it would reject the IWC proposal in favour of the Australian proposal.

The Australian proposal calls for an end to whaling in the next five years, and a phasing out of all other whaling worldwide, with the exception of aboriginal subsistence whaling - within a reasonable time period.

If adopted, the Australian proposal would offer the whaling nations an opportunity to respectably switch off the life-support machine on these archaic, unprofitable and dying industries and allow the IWC to concentrate its efforts on protecting rather than killing these magnificent mammals.

Over the past 20 years the whaling nations have met with global condemnation for flouting the whaling ban and killing more than 25,000 whales. To now reward this behaviour by offering up yet more whales is tantamount to waving the white flag of defeat.

* Bridget Vercoe is the New Zealand programmes manager for the world protection of animals. WSPA leads Whalewatch, an international network of more than 40 non-governmental groups opposed to whaling on welfare grounds.