*EPF519 04/07/00
Text: Commerce Dept. Says Whales No Threat to Fish Stocks
(Overfishing called real threat to marine resources) (1110)

Overfishing by humans, not consumption by whales, is the reason for dwindling fish stocks around the world, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

A publication called "The Facts About Whales and Fish Stocks" issued by the department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says whales do not threaten the health of ocean fish stocks as some foreign governments argue.

"In truth, humans are primarily responsible for fisheries declines," the publication says. "It is humans who continue to threaten the world's stocks through overfishing and reluctance to allow stocks to naturally replenish."

The publication comes out just ahead of the April 10-14 meeting in Kenya of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). At Kenya the United States and other countries intend to fight a Japanese proposal to move some whales to a less restrictive conservation category that could encourage more whaling.

NOAA says that whales tend to feed on different fish stocks from those stocks that fisheries exploit.

"Will simply removing whales result in more fish being available to fisheries?" the publication asks. The best way to improve fishing yields is through better fisheries management, it says.

Following is the text of the publication:

(begin text)

WHALES ARE NOT THE MAJOR CAUSES OF DWINDLING FISH STOCKS

Do whales and other marine mammals compete with humans for fisheries resources? Should whales be hunted to save fish stocks? Today's marine science community has enough expertise and experience with the complex ocean ecosystem to recognize that the "competition" claim is oversimplified and the hunting proposal is biologically unsound.

As a whole, whales do not eat "large quantities of fish as food," nor do they threaten the health of the world's limited marine fish resources. Some whale species do prey on fish, but often on fish that humans do not consume. In truth, humans are primarily responsible for fisheries declines. It is humans who continue to threaten the world's stocks through overfishing and reluctance to allow stocks to naturally replenish.

To date, fish consumption by whales being characterized as competition with humans for fish has been based on misleading data that ignore the dynamics of extremely complex marine ecosystems throughout the world. Let us share the known facts.

FISH RESOURCES KNOWN TO BE DECLINING/OVERFISHING BLAMED

The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization's recent "State of the World's Fishery Resources" report concluded that approximately 60 percent of the world's major fish resources are showing declining yields. The FAO concluded that the desired annual increase in world fish stocks of at least 10 million tons could be achieved by reducing fishing effort and by increasing yield-per-recruit (in other words, increasing age at first capture, prohibiting exploitation of young fish, increasing net mesh sizes, and closing areas utilized by young fish). However, the FAO did not make the suggestion that the lethal removal of whales will help the recovery of over-exploited fish populations.

Numerous scientists around the world have reported on the depleted or declining status of various fish populations. Some examples of fish population collapse caused, at least in part, by overfishing include the sardine stocks off California and Japan in the 1940's herring in the North Sea in the 1970s, anchovies off Peru in 1972, and capelin in the Barents Sea in the 1980s. Other recent examples include the cod populations off Canada and the groundfish populations off New England.

FISH, NOT WHALES, EAT MOST OF THE WORLD'S FISH

Piscivorous fish, or fish that feed on other fish, are major consumers of fish eggs and larvae, which is a problem in many fisheries. For example, predation of herring eggs by cod in Norway has been reported to cause a major loss of herring eggs. Egg cannibalism is an important mortality factor in anchovies, which are "own to eat their own eggs. Cod predation has been reported as a significant source of fish loss for fisheries in the Baltic Sea.

Overall, predatory and cannibalistic fishes consume vastly greater amounts of commercially valuable fish than do marine mammals. In the Bering Sea, marine mammals have been reported to feed on 1.1 million tons of pollock annually. Predation by other fish was estimated to be 2.7 million tons, and cannibalism accounted for 7.4 million tons annually. One study compared fish loss to predators (including fisheries) among six marine ecosystems. The analysis showed that in all six ecosystems, loss from predatory fishes accounted for more than 50 percent of the total fish loss.

WHALES USUALLY DO NOT PREY ON THE SAME FISH SPECIES AS FISHERMEN

Many of the fish species consumed by whales are not of commercial interest nor suitable for human consumption. In most instances whales are not in direct competition with fisheries

In the Pacific Ocean direct competition between marine mammals and fisheries is limited because more than 65 percent of the food consumed by whales and other marine mammals consists of deep sea squids and deepwater fishes not harvested by humans.

Many important fisheries, such as those for tropical tunas, occur where whales are not feeding. In addition, many important whale feeding grounds, such as those in the Antarctic, are in regions that are insignificant to the harvest of fish for human consumption. Moreover, Southern Hemisphere baleen whales predominantly eat krill, not fish. In many cases whales feed on fish that are inaccessible to fishermen or unsuitable for human consumption, such as watery deep sea squids consumed by sperm whales and the very small deep sea fishes consumed by small whales and dolphins.

ECOSYSTEM COMPLEXITIES MUST BE CONSIDERED

Ecosystem management is difficult because marine scientists do not yet understand ecosystem dynamics well enough to be able to accurately predict the outcome of any particular manipulation. However, scientists do know that hunting whales to save fish is unlikely to increase the number of fish in the sea. In actuality, other ocean predators might increase their levels of predation if fish became more abundant.

Will simply removing whales result in more fish being available to fisheries? In fact, in many ocean areas there are already fewer whales now than there were 100 years ago. There is no reason to expect that the removal of whales would lead to increased catches of fish because of complex ecosystem interactions with unpredicted and often unexpected results. By far, the most effective way to improve fishery yields would be through better fisheries management as outlined by the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
NNNN