IWC calls for reduced oil industry impact on whales

Exxon Mobil said it was not aware of adverse affect on marine mammal populations from seismic guns.

FRIGATE BAY, St Kitts and Nevis - The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has called for the oil and gas industry to find ways to reduce the impact of seismic air guns on marine species.

The guns use noise loud enough to cross entire oceans in the search for oil.

The IWC acknowledged that the air guns were a possible threat to whales, dolphins, squid and other species in the world's oceans, and called for more research and for "mitigation" procedures to be developed.

The guns, which are used to map potential oil and gas deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Australia's Northwest Shelf and elsewhere, were found to damage hearing, migratory patterns and to reduce fish catches.

"The idea that sound-sensitive species can co-exist with this is simply incredible," said Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defence Council, lauding the step taken by the IWC.

He said the noise generated was so explosive that the sound of an air gun used off the coast of California traveled all the way to Asia.

The report and recommendations on air guns from the IWC's scientific committee were unanimously endorsed on Monday local time at the commission's annual meeting in the Caribbean island state of St Kitts and Nevis.

US oil major Exxon Mobil Corp., which is represented at the IWC as a non-governmental organisation, said the images of the subsurface created by seismic surveys were "critical in the search for tomorrow's oil and gas resources."

"We are not aware that these surveys have ever resulted in physical injury or adversely affected any marine mammal population," the company said in a statement distributed in St. Kitts.

But Exxon said that it and other energy companies had set up an US$8 ($13.15) million research programme to investigate the impact of the air guns.

Conservation groups

Meanwhile, conservation groups called on governments to redouble their efforts to save endangered whales after pro-whaling nations led by Japan yesterday won a majority at the meeting for the first time in more than 20 years.

The pro-whaling nations pushed through a statement declaring a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling unnecessary and blaming whales for depleting fish stocks.

Environmental activists said it should serve as a catalyst to stir US public opinion, in particular, and lead to a counteroffensive by anti-whaling nations at the next IWC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, next year.

"For those governments that have failed to wake up and smell the coffee, this is the final wake-up call," said Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley.

A coalition of animal welfare groups planned to launch an international campaign called "Save the Whales, Again!" to remind people about the perils that whales and dolphins face, said Jeff Pantukhoff, founder of The Whaleman Foundation.

In addition to scientific whaling, the IWC permits some indigenous communities to hunt a limited number of whales under subsistence whaling permits, including Alaska's Eskimos.

The Eskimos' quota of 41 bowhead whales a year has helped tie Washington's hands to some extent because it needs Japanese support for the quota to be approved.

The quota will be up for renewal again at the 2007 IWC meeting in Anchorage. The United States is also expected to seek a gray whale hunting quota for Washington state's Makaw tribe.

The United States was in a difficult position as "a whaling nation that is anti-whaling," noted Japan's alternate commissioner Joji Morishita.

Conservation groups say they have no intention of challenging aboriginal whaling quotas.

But they said that after the approval of the pro-whaling declaration in St Kitts, it was more important than ever that the United States stand firm against the whaling nations in the run-up to the Anchorage gathering.

" The US cannot cut any deals over the bowhead quota," said Kitty Block of the Humane Society International.

- REUTERS