Pilot whales, dolphins, porpoises not protected: Int'l Whaling Commission

Came across this interesting tidbit. Apparently the IWC's own head of science believes that the smaller whales are in even greater danger than the large whales, but no one's paying attention.



Oh, Japan is against that. I'll save you the effort of searching the article to find that conclusion.

they would keep pushing to hunt htese animals!

They are not "small whales", they are not whales of any kind.

Not, I feel necessary to add, that I bear them the slightest ill will whatsoever; I hope for their continued survival and thriving in the wild.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cetacea.html

http://tolweb.org/Cetacea/15977

Dolphins and porpoises fall in the classification Odontoceti, or "toothed whales". http://tolweb.org/Odontoceti/16025

Delphinidae includes dolphins, killer whales, and pilot whales.

Whaling refers to the killing of actual whales. Not their cousins. If the whaling commission was set up to deal with "whales", and "whales" alone, then as construed, it ought not have any jurisdiction - and if jurisdiction is so required, the UN should set it up, either with the existing commission or a new one, rather than have the vocabulary of aquatic biology cheapened by political expediency.

Pilot "whales" are certainly hunted commercially, but are grouped with dolphins. Biologically, which is what you referred to in your first post, they are members of the same family: Family Delphinidae (dolphins, killer whales, pilot whales, and relatives). Their is no clear and unambiguous border between the two groups. As far as biological classification is concerned, the dolphins are members of the order Cetacae, which is just Latin for "whales". By that argument, a "Whaling" commision should automatically have dolphins etc. under its purview. It was politics, fed by commercial pressure, that decreed otherwise.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Delphinidae.html

"rather than have the vocabulary of aquatic biology cheapened by political expediency" Too late. That was the first thing that was done in setting up the IWC -- define as many species out of protection as possible. Just define something not to be a whale for political purposes -- even though biology says it is a whale -- and the "protection" of whales is crippled. As planned.

I wasn't sure about pilot whales until you said it, but I darn well know that orcas/killer whales are NOT technically whales. IN BIOLOGY. Biology says that they are NOT whales. And I say this only because accuracy is important. If they'd defined killer whales as "whales" for the purpose of the whaling commission they'd have been defining THAT for political purposes, end of story.

Now should that be changed? If so, great! But the UN set up the commission and from what I'm hearing the wording means, as I said in the first place, *actual whales*. That is, the family for whales, not the family for dolphins, even if both of which fall under the order for "whales"! Forget the original latin, I know damn well what "whale" means in the English language and dolphins aren't it!

I can't STAND it when environmentalists won't accept basic elements of scientific classification. No offense intended. But there is absolutely no justification for the argument that the UN set up the whaling commission to deal with Family Delphinidae. Perhaps they SHOULD have, but they DID NOT. Actually I think they should have. But I know they did not, and I can't pretend otherwise for anyone.

within the Order Cetacae ("whales"), not a separate category from them. This is not ignoring or abusing scientific classification, it is pointing out that the IWC's definitions are already political, not scientific. Dolphins are just SMALLER than the species to which the nonscientific, English term "whale" is traditionally applied.

In what way does the activity portrayed in these photographs differ from "whaling"? I would maintain the only difference is quantity, not quality.
http://www.seashepherd.org/taiji/taiji_ruthless_killing.html


You seem to be defending "accuracy" in a very limited way. These are really the same type of creature, and the distinction which divides them into groups which are protected or not protected is not scientific, but commercial/political. Saying a pilot whale is exempt from protection because it is technically* a "dolphin" is just falling back on legal weaselry when no other defense exists.





*"Technically" means we could have chosen whatever category we wanted, but we chose the one that helps us keep doing whatever we're doing.

And with all due respect, accuracy is by its very nature limited because it deals with truth. I'm not saying a pilot whale is exempt from protection because it is technically "a dolphin" - I'm saying that a pilot whale is exempt from the whaling commission's purview because the UN charter establishing it created it to manage WHALES, in the plain dictionary meaning of the term, meaning whales by taxonomy. The truth is not weaselry. The charter was just plain set up wrong. You want the commission to act as if it can unilaterally change its own charter's plain English and formal legal meaning because not doing so would be wrong. Fine. But that's not how the real world works. In the real world, the solution is to CHANGE THE DAMN CHARTER to broaden the IWC's mandate. And that is what I say should be done.

Because bending terminology into pretzels and breaking basic tenets of accepted common, legal, and taxonomical truths is not an acceptable alternative and will only lead to more trouble later on.

It's like apes and monkeys: the dividing line between Mysticeti and Odontoceti, or Physeteridae and Ziphiidae, is where mainly where we decide to put it, not because of any fundamental difference: * In fact, Irrawaddy dolphins and Beluga whales are both species of Monodontidae.

"Biology says that they are NOT whales. And I say this only because accuracy is important"

No, taxonomy says they they are not whales. I'd suggest settling down with some Richard Dawkins until you understand the difference between taxonomy and evolutionary biology. These creatures were around long before we invented the "basic elements of scientific classification" - a fact you seem to be forgetting.

---
*If you speak latin you'll appreciate why this is a bit of a white lie ;)

Since my first try at this sounded not respectful enough I'm starting over...

1. Is there any serious disagreement that the UN did not mean to include dolphins etc. originally? I don't see any. I see arguments it should have, not that it did. Solution is to change the darn charter.

2. I thought taxonomy was, um, part of biology. Like, a core part. A BIG part. Evolutionary biology ("like apes and monkeys") is not the basis on which the word "whale" as it is known to mankind is based. Whales are whales, not dolphins. Books are written citing "myths" that dolphins are whales, that porpoises are whales, that killer whales are "whales". I said biology. I didn't say evolutionary biology. Would you like to get rid of taxonomy altogether? Um, there must be someone to petition about that, but I would have no idea who.

1) No, there is no reason why the IWC, as it stands, should cover these animals. And this motion is a suggestion that they be included: However, I see no reason that the IWC should include land-locked Mali, but exclude smaller marine mammals. That is surrealist logic at it's finest.

2) No, taxonomy is a tool to help us catagorise biology, but there's a lot more to it - Just as defining what is a ampule and what is an amphora will help you categorise ancient pottery, but doesn't really tell you much about the development of the Phoenician oil trade c.650 BC.: And generalisations like "whales are whales" are based more in etymology than they are in taxonomy or biology. If I said "birds are birds" and ate a roast bald eagle with a side-order of fried kiwi, claiming it was taxonomically chicken, I wouldn't be posting for quite a few years....

The IWC was not set up to dolphins etc... if the IWC won't cover it, because its charter doesn't say it should or needs to, then either the charter should be changed or a different body set up to deal with the issue separately.

I don't think that's a complicated position for me to hold.

...I thought this was changing the convention - in scope, if not wording. I've just flicked through the English text, and it refers to "whales" throughout - not a taxonomic term, therefore open to interpretation: To be honest, it probably needs re-writing - one way or the other.

By which I mean the prevailing rule for legal documents including international treaties and declarations like the one that created the IWC. I can't see any way that as currently written, the charter supports the legal authority for the IWC to regulate or ban the catching of these animals by itself. This is not Security Council stuff; the IWC has ONLY the authority that the nations of the world have delegated to it via the UN. It's not right to go re-interpreting the plain meaning of "whale". And it's not productive; countries will declare such measures illegal and then we'll have an even bigger mess on our hands.

The issue needs to be addressed the right way.

Of course I doubt Japan will go along with that easily anyway... for which it can rightfully be blamed. But not for this. This is declaring the charter means what it says. Fine for people to argue that's wrong but... that IS what the charter says. Change what it says, instead of twisting what it means, please.

...but I'm sure the English "whale" translates in to some pretty vague terms (especially in Mali!)

What be useful, would be to take out the word "whale" and replace it with "species listed in appendix A", then add a list of species (AFAIK, they are always in latin) that are covered. I'm pretty sure there would be some rough fights over what goes in the list, but it would clear this sort of mess up.

What do reckon? (in principle, at least)

As I repeated much earlier, yes, the creatures ARE closely related. But one group is called whales and the other group is not.

As for what it translates to in Mali, I wouldn't know, but there is such a thing as working languages (like English, French, German, etc). There's also precedent and what not. "Whale" means whale for the purpose of the whaling commission. If it meant something else, it'd mean countries willingly gave up their sovereignty on more than just whales when the IWC was formed. That's news to them, I assure you.

I'm sorry if I seem hard-line on this but, to me, it's the same crap the US pulled when it interpreted the "first" war resolution against Saddam before the second Gulf War when it dropped its efforts to get a "second" war resolution from the UN security council and reinterpreted the first to justify preventive warfare. I'm a linguist. If people in international law treat accepted terms in major languages as squishy and alterable, treaties cease to hold any value whatsoever. Then it just comes down to might is right. Just because it's about saving the whales does not mean might-is-right is an acceptable general principle of international affairs.

Look, listing the species currently classified as "whale" within the current English definition used by the IWC would take about 5 minutes for a decent marine biologist: if you look at things like the Basel Convention, the agreement fits on a single page while the appendices run into double figures. It's really not normally a problem in international agreement terms.

I'm just puzzled why you want the IWC to cling to term "whale" when it really is within the boundary of linguistics and law to list the species, and have an end to the matter. As I said, it doesn't mean adding anything not currently covered, but would give the IWC a lot more clarity and flexibility.

It strikes me you're being very anglophilic for a linguist. And if the gulf war resolutions had been more definitively worded, non of this shit would have happened - it's because they were vague and therefore open to interpretation that things got, err, clouded - exactly the sort of thing that should be avoided.

'why you want the IWC to cling to term "whale"' <- where's the justification for this? Anywhere?

I just don't think there was any question what whale meant. I see nothing wrong with defining whale so that it means what everyone has taken it to mean since the charter was signed. I also see nothing wrong with expanding the IWC's mandate to cover more than just "whales".

But I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall when I say the last part.

The term whale is ambiguous: it can refer to all cetaceans, to just the larger ones, or only to members of particular families within the order Cetacea

You know what you mean when you say whale, but other people - especially with other languages - may put a different interpretation on it. The English words Whale, Dolphin and Porpoise are not derived from any taxomonic definition. Take the Pilot whales, for instance: they look like whales, behave like whales, are hunted as whales, but are part of the Delphinidae family - they're big dolphins. What does your plain dictionary definition say about them?

But thanks for clafifying your position on the other Cetacae and the IWC's madate (I was beginning to wonder :))

I'd tell that to any Freeper too, no offense.

You are just plain WRONG to say that "whale" bears no relation to any taxonomic definition today, June 20th, 2006. Now, I'm not looking this up, but I think it's safe to say that pilot whales and killer whales were named that well prior to their classification in the Delphinidae family. So let me start from the top.

Pilot whale = not a whale
Killer whale = not a whale
Whale = a whale
A creature that is part of the family for whales = a whale

Am I boring you? Is this getting too complicated? Your point seems to be that the word whale did not ORIGINALLY derive from any taxonomic definition. The original definition of "whale" has been "no longer operative," as they say, since post-Darwin taxonomy of the species. The standing definiton of "whale," which is, a member of the scientifically classified family for whales, not dolphins, was most definitely in universal use when the charter for the International Whaling Commission was written.

People with politics in the right place who can't command the facts of what a simple word means to any reasonable person can't effectively argue the meaning of international treaties.

Edit: I'm not done yet.

First of all, you selectively quoted from the Wiki. Not cool. The complete quote is as follows:

"The term whale is ambiguous: it can refer to all cetaceans, to just the larger ones, or only to members of particular families within the order Cetacea. The latter definition is the one followed here. Whales are those cetaceans which are neither dolphins (i.e. members of the families Delphinidae or Platanistoidea) nor porpoises. This can lead to some confusion because Orcas ("Killer Whales") and Pilot Whales have "whale" in their name, but they are dolphins for the purpose of classification."

FOR THE PURPOSE OF CLASSIFICATION. And if you didn't realize it yet, when the term "whale" is included in a legal document - which I assure you, includes the charter of a UN-created international body - "whale" is meant to mean what is SCIENTIFICALLY CLASSIFIED as a whale.

By the way, scientific classification is done in latin just so people can't pull what you're trying to pull here, and say that "whale" means 50 different things in 50 different languages. Maybe in the vernacular, but in the latin, in the scientific classification, it means one thing: particular families within the order Cetacea, and those particular families don't include Delphinidae.

Wake up. You're not going to change the scientific definition of whale just because the IWC interprets its charter according to the narrow and accurate truth of the language used to write it. For the last time, change the charter instead of trying to wreck scientific classification of aquatic mammals. That's not cool, messing with science, which is intended to mean the same thing in all living languages for the purpose of free and open debate.

I'm sitting here arguing that the IWC should categorically list the species: it turns out they do, they just don't refer to that in the convention text (which is why I missed it). Since you didn't point it out, I'm guessing you didn't know that either. :)

Also, since the IWC appears to define Pilot and Killer whales as toothed whales under the convention, hopefully you'll now see why "Whale = a whale" is a less than satisfactory definition.

It's just underlining my point.

I said I'm a linguist, not an IWC rep.. so nah, didn't know that. I thought they might, but I wasn't going to look. Wouldn't matter to me. The meaning of "whale" is not in serious dispute except by environmentalists.

Now it's time for a Save the Toothed Whales campaign.

...otherwise we could have wasted a dozen posts discussing it.

Just list them all as "extinct". Further distinctions are truly academic.

Why hide behind words to give the whalers a free hand to slaughter? You seem to be in denial that the IWC was ORIGINALLY SET UP using the narrowest, politically compromised rules they could manage, precisely because politically influential backers wanted to get away with as much slaughter as possible within an inescapable regime of regulation. Agreeing to accept the definitions imposed by one side is to concede the whole debate. This is exactly the thing the Republicans/Corporatists have been so successful in doing. They appropriate the language, and a PLIANT press and public cede it to them. Any biologist will tell you that genetically dolphins are small whales, or whales are large dolphins, and that it's largely a matter of convention to recognize them as two categories. Indeed, the distinction is largely a matter of colloquial speech, and varies from language to language. THERE IS NO "CORRECT" DEFINITION. The fact that the two categories are rather mixed-up, with killer whales and pilot whales being classed as dolphins, and beluga whales and river dolphins falling in the same family, and that the classifications have changed over time, reveals the arbitrariness of the classifications. As I pointed out above, the largest pilot whales are as large as small Minkes, yet both are hunted as whales -- one regulated, the other unregulated. As far as the people making money off of whale slaughter are concerned, there really is no difference. But it was very much in their interest to force the compromised rules to say otherwise. You can feed that deception all you want, but it's still a deception.

There is simply no justification for your saying "THERE IS NO "CORRECT" DEFINITION". None. That is not how the world works. As the other poster replied to me, a marine biologist can tell you what is included by the term "whale" in 5 minutes. The IWC never bothered to define it because any fool can look it up in a book and quickly read how "killer whale" is a misnomer (that's why many call them Orcas to be more specific).

You are not getting it drilled into your skull that regardless of what the IWC charter should have meant, what I am describing is what it SAID, and continues to say. There is no deception, just a need for new authority where old authority was not granted. The IWC can't just do a power grab by manipulating language.

But you're arguing something more broadly, which is that there is no correct definition for ANY word in ANY language because distinctions are "largely a matter of colloquial speech, and varies from language to language". No. Just... no.

But by all means, let's have a Save the Dolphins campaign! Just don't call them whales. It's not going to help. Because frankly...

"You seem to be in denial that the IWC was ORIGINALLY SET UP using the narrowest, politically compromised rules they could manage, precisely because politically influential backers wanted to get away with as much slaughter as possible within an inescapable regime of regulation."

Yes. Yes, you actually get it. You actually understand, and you STILL want the present IWC to interpret plain language, narrowly written, understood by all, to mean something that is the exact opposite of what it was originally written to mean!!! No. Just... no!

Change. the. damn. wording. Change. the. damn. charter. Please. That's the only solution that will pass the smell test. (Edited for typo in the quote, my fault)

> If the whaling commission was set up to deal with "whales", and
> "whales" alone, then as construed, it ought not have any jurisdiction
> - and if jurisdiction is so required, the UN should set it up, either
> with the existing commission or a new one, rather than have the
> vocabulary of aquatic biology cheapened by political expediency.

Unfortunately, both political and financial expediency have served
to cheapen the entire IWC and thus render its "safeguards" largely
nonexistent ... still a few bits of paper around but no action taken
to defend the "whales" (regardless of how people choose to define
that particular word).

Long live Sea Shepherd!

It occured to me just now after replying elsewhere in this thread that people seem to have this idea that before the vote the article mentions, the IWC charter was viewed as applying to dolphins etc. and the IWC had full authority to protect them from hunting/fishing/whaling what have you. That is, that the vote somehow removed protections previously in place.

Not so.

The whaling commission has never interpreted its role in that way. As the article points out, the IWC offers "advice" on the issue but has never made ANY pretense of having the authority to regulate matters re: small cetaceans. That's because its explicit authority, granted by the UN, applies to large cetaceans i.e. whales. It has never been otherwise. The vote did not strip protection; that protection never existed in the first place.

The point is, what the scientist quoted here says, that the small cetaceans (I still vehemently disagree with calling them "smaller whales" in English) are in even greater danger, is a completely separate issue from what the IWC said, which is that it has no power to regulate any small cetaceans, EVEN IF THEY ARE IN MORE DANGER.

Why? Because that is the darn law. The IWC cannot just decide one day that "whales" means dolphins. It can't, that is, without being openly mocked, outside and eventually inside a courtroom. For the IWC to have such authority, the UN needs to grant it - and should do so without delay. Until it does, the IWC is properly and accurately interpreting its own charter, as unfortunate a reality as that is.

Nothing of this sort was ever stated or implied. The recent vote was totally unrelated. I sincerely doubt anyone has been misled on this issue, deliberately or otherwise.

> Why? Because that is the darn law. The IWC cannot just decide one day that
> "whales" means dolphins. It can't, that is, without being openly mocked,
> outside and eventually inside a courtroom.

It has been openly mocked for years by the Japanese on the high seas.
It has been openly mocked with the blood that is hosed off their decks.
It has been openly mocked by the slaughter of "protected" species.
It has been openly mocked by the pretence of "scientific" whaling (for money).
It has been openly mocked in the restaurants, school canteens and dog-food cans.

What is this "law" that you seem to hold high?

It does not exist in a courtroom, outside a courtroom or anywhere else in the
world as far as the Japanese are concerned ... and, thanks to their bribery,
coercion and blackmail, the remaining myth of "protection" is being picked apart
like the corpse of a fin-less shark.

What's so damn wrong with rewriting the charter, so that it CLEARLY protects dolphins etc, anyway? Where's the horror here?

Rewriting the charter - especially with the Japanese having recently
bought so many votes - would take a decade to get through the various
debates, discussions, working groups and courtrooms.

During this time the whalers will continue to prevaricate, delay and
buy/blackmail even more helpless third-world nations to "join" their
side, log-jamming any process involving lawyers for years.

Once the process has begun, the whalers will hide behind the cry of
"can't be prosecuted while the decision is still in progress" ...
again, not something that they will encourage their lawyers to speed
up (and the lawyers will naturally prefer to extend their charge time).

Long before any formal charter change completes (if, indeed, it ever
does complete without being watered down even further than the current
charter), the population of "whales" and related species will have been
wiped out - if not literally extinct then certainly no longer viable.
And I bet that even then, the Japanese would build in a "scientific
whaling" clause to allow them to murder the last few ...

That's the horror.
That's what's so damn wrong about this immoral, ethic-free barbarity
that hides behind corruption and lies at every step.

Word games be buggered, this is the systematic extinction of life,
not for survival but for profit, greed and arrogance.

The problem isn't whalers shooting harpons in them; they're bycatch by fishermen. This isn't an International Fishing Commission. If it tries to be, you think that the lawyers will be any more forgiving? They'll just have a better legal case by arguing the commission ignored its own charter.

I also don't think that the scientific classification of the species deserves to be categorized as "word games". As I said, turning into language thugs is not a solution I think will work, or even help in the long run.

Edit: You know what? High seas terrorism is actually a more realistic option than winning this by word games. So I think I should stop posting about this and just let the calls for Sea Shepherd support continue completely unchallenged.