Bridget Vercoe: Slaughter would stop if whales could scream

As my accountant never ceases to remind me, we would be lost without numbers. And he is right if the whaling debate in the lead-up to this year's International Whaling Commission meeting is anything to go by.

Whale population statistics, numbers of whales killed every year for scientific research, number of tonnes of frozen whale meat Japan cannot sell because of lack of consumer demand, latest pro and anti-whaling vote counts ... the list is endless.

All these numbers have played a major role in shaping public discussion of the issue to date.

But another set of numbers must be considered equally, as they form the single most powerful argument for why pro-whalers must never get their way.

These numbers detail what takes place on remote and deserted seas when a whaling vessel and a whale come together. They convey a welfare story of extreme cruelty: protracted and terrifying pursuit, totally inadequate weaponry and, all too frequently, slow and agonising death.

Consider the chase. Eyewitnesses report that pursuit times of 30 minutes are not unusual in Japanese whale hunts, although 45 and even 90-minute chases occur. To place a shot, the vessel must get within 40-60m of the whale and several hours may pass before this range is achieved.

It is routinely reported that the exhausted whale's respiratory rate is deliberately raised to shorten surfacing intervals, as this increases opportunities for harpooning.

The most disturbing numbers emerge in the next stage of the whaling process, the kill. Hopelessly outmoded weaponry, such as harpoon technology developed in the 19th century, continues to be used widely, resulting in appalling statistics relating to time to death of a whale, or TTD.

The same harpoon which was designed to kill the 10-tonne minke whale has been used to hunt larger whales, some weighing more than 50 tonnes.

With often poor weather and sea conditions, inadequate harpoons meant Japanese whalers achieved an immediate kill in only 40 per cent of cases in a recent whaling season.

During the 2002/2003 hunting season, Japan reported that some 60 per cent of the whales killed did not die instantly, and average time to death for this season was two minutes and 37 seconds.

Indeed, TTD figures for the approximately 1300 minke whales killed annually by Norwegian and Japanese whalers are on average two to three minutes, with some animals taking more than 40 minutes to die.

Smaller whaling operations reveal even more shocking TTD figures. Recent data from a Greenland minke hunt provided an average TTD of 16 minutes, and a longest time a staggering 300 minutes.

Russian whalers took an average of 53 minutes and 47 bullets to kill each gray whale taken in 1999, 2000 and 2001 hunts. In the 1999 hunt, it took more than three hours and 40 minutes, and 180 bullets, to kill a single gray whale.

To best put these overwhelmingly abhorrent statistics into context, consider the scenario if the same death figures were common in the nation's abattoirs.

The condemnation of the meat industry would be so unanimous as to force an immediate end to such inhumane slaughter and the introduction of the strictest regulations to ensure an instant, painless kill.

Curiously, the whaling industry and its slaughter techniques have remained largely unchallenged and unregulated for centuries.

Yet even if humane mechanisms were put in place tomorrow, because of the nature of whaling operations and the high potential for poor welfare, it is impossible for the slaughter of whales to comply with the standards now expected for the slaughter of livestock species.

Perhaps the IWC should look beyond the many numbers to find the resolve they need to end all forms of whaling once and for all.

The commissioners will have to go back half a century to a group of gunners on an Antarctic whaling trip, who admitted to an onboard physician that if whales could scream the industry would stop, for nobody could stand it.

What better reason for the IWC to tell Japan and its pro-whaling faction that, finally, their number is up?

* Bridget Vercoe is media and campaigns officer for the World Society for the Protection of Animals. WSPA leads Whalewatch, an international coalition of more than 140 anti-whaling groups from more than 55 countries.