Whale forensics highlights threat to species

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Whale forensics highlights threat to species

17:36 30 September 2009 by Peter Aldhous

 

A high proportion of the whale meat on sale in Japan comes from a population of

north Pacific minke whales that some fear is under serious threat.

 

The finding, from a forensic DNA study of meat bought on Japanese markets,

suggests that either Japan's scientific whaling programme is taking more animals

from this population than previously estimated, or accidental " by-catch " of the

whales in fishing nets is larger than officially reported.

 

Vimoksalehi Lukoschek of the University of California, Irvine, and Scott Baker

of Oregon State University in Newport, along with their colleagues, bought

samples of whale meat in Japan and used DNA analysis to determine in each case

not only the species of whale, but also which population it came from.

 

They found that a disturbingly high proportion came from a population of north

Pacific minke whale that was selected for protection by the International

Whaling Commission (IWC) in the 1980s, before the wider moratorium on commercial

whaling came into effect.

 

Scientific whaling

 

Much of the whale meat on the Japanese market comes from a different species of

minke whale, caught in the Antarctic by the nation's controversial scientific

whaling programme. But a smaller scientific hunt also targets north Pacific

minkes, killing 169 of the animals in 2008. Most of those killed are thought to

come from a relatively abundant population to the east of Japan called the " O "

stock. However, some are thought to come from the protected " J " stock, which

mostly lives in the Sea of Japan.

 

To find out exactly where the whale meat on sale in Japan was caught, the

researchers analysed 1200 samples of Japanese whale meat between 1997 and 2004.

They found that 250 of the samples came from 201 north Pacific minke whales. An

alarming 46 per cent of these appeared to be from the protected J stock.

 

" That would mean that either by-catch is higher, or more J stock is being caught

in the scientific hunt, " says Lukoschek. Both O and J stock whales can be caught

in fishing nets as by-catch, in which case they can be sold for meat.