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Small Cetaceans
of Japan
Exploitation and Biology
Small Cetaceans
of Japan
Exploitation and Biology
Toshio Kasuya
Translation by Toshio Kasuya
Translation edited by William F. Perrin
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Section ii Biology
Chapter 8 Finless Porpoise 153
81 Description of the Species 153
82 Scientific Name and Type Locality 153
83 Distribution 154
831 Worldwide Distribution 154
832 Taxonomy and Geographical Variation 156
833 Distribution of Finless Porpoises in Japan 158
834 Local Populations of Japanese Finless Porpoises 159
84 Abundance and Seasonality of Distribution 162
841 Seasonal Movements 162
842 Problems in Estimating Abundance 164
Contents vii
society, where there are opportunities to accumulate their CONCLUDING CHAPTER: CETACEAN
own experience and behavior patterns within each group, BIOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
that is, the development of culture Striped dolphins and
bottlenose dolphins fall between these two extremes The This is a summary of my research activity created based on
offspring usually start to live apart from their mothers after a lecture given at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of
nursing 2–4 years, but nothing is known about the fission and Marine Mammals held in Cape Town in 2007 It includes a
fusion systems of the group of these species Baird’s beaked list of questions I have not been able to answer and hypotheses
whales have a strange life history, where males live 30 years proposed to interpret my research results I also cover here
longer than females, and it is suspected that they have a social both the biological aspects of the animals and the problems
structure that is quite different from those of any of the spe- of human communities that must be considered in the con-
cies mentioned earlier servation of cetaceans, as I have encountered them during my
The seventh species dealt with in this book, the Pacific experience as a whale biologist
white-sided dolphin, develops a secondary sexual characteristic Many readers will feel it most convenient just to concen-
in the shape of the dorsal fin in adult males I included a chap- trate on particular chapters of interest For this reason, I did
ter for this species with a belief that it will help in the studies not expend any particular effort to completely remove all
of its behavior Among the seven species mentioned earlier, redundancy between chapters
six, not including the finless porpoise, are hunted in Japanese Toshio Kasuya
small-cetacean fisheries April 28, 2009
Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
The zoological order Cetartiodactyla contains the whales, posterior legs, changed the front legs into fins (flippers), and
dolphins, and porpoises as well as the artiodactyls (even- formed a pair of horizontal fins (tail flukes) at the end of the
toed ungulates) Humans have had significant influence on tail These animals are grouped into the Archaeoceti The
the life of cetaceans since about 1000 years ago and have shape of their teeth differed with the position on the jaw
greatly changed the status of some cetacean populations For (heterodonty), and their milk teeth were replaced by perma-
example, hunting decreased the abundance of Antarctic blue nent teeth after birth (diphyodonty) Their dental formula
whales (Balaenoptera musculus) from the initial number was close to that of primitive mammals, that is, 3 incisors,
of about 250,000 to about 1,000 by 1965 when protection 1 canine, 4 premolars, and 2–3 molars, namely, 10–11 teeth
started, but since then the population has only increased to on each jaw (Uhen 2009)
about 2,000 (IWC 2009) The Yangtze River dolphin or baiji The Archaeoceti flourished and expanded their habitats
(Lipotes vexillifer) became extinct in the beginning of this to the world oceans, disappearing by the end of the Eocene
century due to the destruction of its environment (Turvey Epoch, or 35 million years before the present To replace
2008) While some people consider cetaceans as fishery the then declining Archaeoceti, two new groups of ceta-
resources and try to manage them as such, others consider ceans emerged: the Mysticeti (baleen whales) and Odontoceti
them as an important element of our environment and hope (toothed whales), which survive to the present Although these
to protect them completely For either purpose, our current two taxa are believed to have arisen from the Archaeoceti,
knowledge of cetaceans is insufficient details of the process are still unknown Fossil records indi-
Using seven species of small cetaceans around Japan as exam- cate that the Archaeoceti arose from the species close to the
ples, this book presents topics on their life history and problems ancestral ungulates and DNA analyses of recent mammals
I experienced while trying to manage them as fishery resources find great similarity between cetaceans and the even-toed
In other words, this book targets the conservation biology of ungulates, particularly the hippopotami (Thewissen 1998)
small cetaceans around Japan These seven species include the For this reason, the cetaceans now are not recognized as a
striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), which were hunted separate order but included with the even-toed ungulates in
in great numbers in the last century, and the Dall’s porpoises the order Cetartiodactyla
(Phocoenoides dalli), short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala Both Odontoceti and Mysticeti normally produce only
macrorhynchus), and Baird’s beaked whales (Berardius bair- one calf at a time This was probably the case also for the
dii), which are still hunted in large numbers Another example, Archaeoceti This book does not deal with the biology of
Archaeoceti
the Japanese population of the narrow-ridged finless porpoises
(Neophocaena asiaeorientalis), has been damaged by human
activities other than direct hunting, and its future seems to be I.1.2 MystIcetI
dubious The broad variety of the life histories of these species
The oldest mysticetes, or baleen whales, are known from
will help readers understand the diversity of cetacean biology as
around the boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene
well as the diverse conservation problems
Epochs, or about 35 million years before present They had
This chapter outlines the content and perspective of the
heterodont dentition and possibly fed on marine organisms
book on the biology and conservation of cetaceans
by filtering them with serrated posterior teeth (Uhen 2009)
Later, they lost their teeth, developing baleen plates (or whale
I.1 CETACEAN BIOLOGY bone) that could function better than the serrated teeth in fil-
tering food organisms in the water The process of having both
I.1.1 ArchAeocetI And the orIgIn of cetAceA
teeth and baleen plates might have had a stage similar to the
The Cenozoic Era of geology started about 65 million years one we currently see on the Dall’s porpoise, which has horny
ago and continues to the present This era is also called the protuberance between small rudimental teeth (Miller 1929)
era of mammals because it is during this period that mam- Numerous tooth buds, the number being greater than the
mals diverged into the various groups that we now see on primitive mammalian figures mentioned earlier, are formed
the planet About 55 million years ago, or during the early in each jaw of recent baleen whales during their fetal stage but
Eocene Epoch in the beginning of the Cenozoic Era, a group are resorbed to disappear around the time when baleen plates
of animals called Pakicetus spp, with their body size about start to grow (Kükenthal 1893; Slijper 1984, in Japanese)
that of a goat, inhabited warm freshwater beaches at the We currently identify 14 species of recent baleen whales of
southern foot of the Himalayas, which had just started to 6 genera and 4 families, but there may be additional species
rise at the time They are the oldest known members of the recognized when taxonomic questions about the “Bryde’s
Cetacea Quite different from recent cetaceans, they prob- whale group” are resolved This number is fewer than that of
ably swam in the water and at the same time were able to the Odontoceti, which relates to their broader geographical
run around the shore on four legs They gradually lost their range of distribution Their body size ranges from 6 to 7 m in
xv
xvi Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
the pygmy right whale (Caperea marginata) to as much as 30 whales However, it is well known that baleen whales pro-
m in the blue whale in the southern hemisphere In Japanese duce low-frequency sounds that propagate for several hundred
coastal waters, 10–11 species of baleen whales of 5 genera kilometers and that they use the sounds for within-species
and 3 families have been recorded, including a vagrant bow- communication, including reproductive activity (Frankel
head whale (Balaena mysticetus) encountered in Osaka Bay 2009) They can identify the presence of conspecifics at a dis-
(see Appendix B; Ohdachi et al. 2009) tance that is greater than the limit of our visual perception
By developing baleen plates, baleen whales acquired an Currently, we do not know how baleen whales locate schools
efficient way of feeding on relatively small organisms Such of their food organisms, but I suspect that they may use their
food species are at a low trophic level and are abundant in voices also as a tool for locating their food organisms or as a
the ocean The abundant and stable food supply, even if lim- tool to exchange feeding information At present, our meth-
ited seasonally, could be an environmental factor that allowed odology for studying the social behavior of baleen whales is
augmentation of body size The whales’ seasonal feeding inadequate
cycle and parturition season located in the starvation period This book does not deal further with the biology of the
of about 6 months requires large nutritional storage in their baleen whales
body This is facilitated by large body size, particularly of
females, and could have been a result of selective pressure for
I.1.3 odontocetI
greater body size (Kasuya 1995) Females of baleen whales
are usually larger than males of the same species Baleen The Odontoceti, or toothed whales, have teeth in their jaws
whales are known to be long-lived, with the maximum lon- and no baleen plates This group includes more than 70 cur-
gevity ranging from about 60 years in the Antarctic minke rently identified species in 35 genera and 9 families and shows
whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) to 150–200 years in the broad variation in morphology and life history In Japanese
bowhead whale All the recent baleen whales are marine spe- waters, a total of 30 odontocete species in 22 genera and
cies; it is unlikely that any freshwater species existed during 5 families have been recorded, excluding an old record of a
the history of the Mysticeti vagrant narwhal (Monodon monoceros) in the Sea of Japan
The earlier studies of the biology of baleen whales relied on and several recent records of belugas (Delphinapterus leu-
whaling industries for specimens as well as for research oppor- cas) off Hokkaido in northern Japan (see Appendix Table;
tunities Examples will be found among classical studies of the Ohdachi et al. 2009) Most toothed whales are marine species,
behavior and morphology of the North Atlantic right whale but finless porpoises (Neophocaena spp), Irrawaddy dolphins
(Eubalaena glacialis) and gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in (Orcaella spp), and tucuxis (Sotalia fluviatilis) have invaded
the nineteenth century using materials from sailing-ship whal- freshwater while leaving their conspecifics or congenerics in
ing, or studies on the growth and reproduction of balaenopterids the marine environment The so-called river dolphins, that is,
using great numbers of carcasses from Norwegian-type whal- the South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica), Yangtze
ing in the twentieth century However, such industry-dependent River dolphin (or baiji), and Amazon River dolphin (Inia
studies decreased following the decline of commercial whaling geoffrensis), adapted to freshwater probably much earlier and
in the late twentieth century and its nearly complete closure have already lost their marine counterparts (Kasuya 1997, in
around 1987 (see Section 12) and the emergence of a new type Japanese)
of whale science For example, individual identification using Some of the early toothed whales were heterodont in den-
photographs helps to get long-term information on individual tition, but recent toothed whales have single-rooted teeth
whales, and biopsy samples for DNA and physiological analy- and are homodont (having no morphological differentiation
ses help in individual recognition and determination of sex and between positions in the jaw), and their first set of teeth is
reproductive status of living whales However, as baleen whales retained for their entire life (monophyodonty) However,
are long-lived, it takes many years before we obtain a complete toothed whales have achieved broad variation in dental for-
picture of their life history, and it is also highly possible that mula and tooth morphology reflecting their feeding habits
environmental factors (both natural and anthropogenic) sur- and social behavior The narwhal usually has an erupted
rounding a species will change before the observations can tooth only on the upper left jaw of an adult male (if we count
cover one generation of the species unerupted teeth, there is a pair of teeth in the upper jaw of
Among baleen whales, some species are particularly suited both sexes) Many species of Ziphiidae have one pair of teeth
for such nonlethal techniques They are coastal species and at various locations in the lower jaw that often erupt only in
species that decreased in abundance due to past whaling, for adult males The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) has
example, the humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), functional teeth only on the lower jaw, which erupt at around
bowhead whales, right whales, and gray whales Applying the attainment of sexual maturity These observations suggest
such techniques to balaenopterids, such as the minke whales, that teeth are not indispensable for feeding in some toothed
will be harder because they often inhabit offshore waters and whale species but rather have social functions The number of
their numbers are still large teeth varies among species of Delphinidae from Risso’s dol-
It might appear to us that the social structure of baleen phin (Grampus griseus) having only 2–3 pairs of mandibular
whales is less developed than that of group-living toothed teeth to Delphinus spp and some Stenella spp having over
Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men xvii
40 teeth on each jaw Five species of river dolphins (4 genera was probably followed by the elaboration of social life and
in 3 families), including the franciscana (Pontoporia blainvil- the development of their cognitive ability (Würsig 2009)
lei) that inhabits a coastal marine environment, also have a These could have evolved independently in multiple lineages
large number of teeth in each jaw These numerous teeth are of toothed whales This book does not deal much with social
used for grasping or tearing food behavior and with the use of sound by toothed whales
Toothed whales are usually smaller than baleen whales, but Studying the social structure of toothed whales started in
the variation in body sizes among the species appears to be Japan using carcasses from fisheries Scientists analyzed the
greater The smallest toothed whales measure less than 15 m, group structure of dolphins taken by drive fisheries or sperm
for example, the finless porpoises in the Indian Ocean, the whales killed under special permit for scientific purposes By
spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) in the Gulf of Siam, combining information thus obtained, scientists estimated the
and the tucuxis in the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers Sperm social structure of striped dolphins, spotted dolphins (Stenella
whale adult males are the largest among recent toothed whales attenuata), common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops trunca-
and may reach 18 m Twenty-one species of Ziphiidae (5 gen- tus), short-finned pilot whales, and Baird’s beaked whales
era) are between these two extremes and measure 4–11 m Most of the results of such studies are discussed in this book
The 38 species of Delphinidae also have a broad range in The same method was also applied on the long-finned pilot
body size, from tucuxis mentioned earlier to killer whales whales (Globicephala melas) off the Faroe Islands The great-
(Orcinus orca), in which adult males reach 9 m Some toothed est disadvantage in such methods is the discontinuity of infor-
whale species have worldwide distributions, but others are mation It does not yield much about life before capture and
limited to single ocean basins or smaller geographical areas nothing about how the animals would have lived in the fol-
such as particular rivers, inland waters, or polar regions lowing days if they had not been killed
Male toothed whales usually grow larger than females These problems disappear if we identify individuals in a
Such sexual dimorphism is particularly developed in some group and observe their behavior for years Although this type
species, for example, sperm whales, killer whales, and two of study requires many years of hard work, effort continues
species of pilot whales (Globicephala spp) Sexual selec- on several toothed whale species such as the two species of
tion could have resulted in the dimorphism in these species bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, and sperm whales and has
However, in some toothed whales, females are larger, for produced information on the reproduction and social struc-
example, in Baird’s beaked whales (Berardius bairdii, see ture for all of these (Mann et al. 2000) This type of study is
Chapter 13) and the franciscana Males of these species do hard to apply for some Japanese cetaceans, because hunting
not show an accelerated growth spurt at around puberty, and continues on them
their growth pattern resembles that of females (Kasuya 2002, The recent Odontoceti contain numerous species of a
in Japanese) broad morphological variety, demonstrating a broad radia-
Most of the marine species of toothed whales rely, at least tion Although our knowledge about the life history and
to some degree, on squids for their nutrition Squids are abun- social structure of toothed whales is limited to only about
dant and a stable nutritional source in the ocean Among the 10 species, it is yet sufficient to reveal that they are at various
toothed whales, the larger species tends to be more oceanic stages of development in their life history, social structure,
and rely more on squids This tendency is seen among several and perhaps cognitive ability This leads me to consider that
odontocete taxa Such large toothed whale species include cetaceans, including both Odontoceti and Mysticeti, are like
both sexually dimorphic species (eg, sperm whales) and “primates in the water”
other species (eg, Baird’s beaked whales) Utilization of such This book, based on the point of view cited earlier and
a rich and stable nutrition source was assisted by acquisition using the seven species of toothed whales around Japan as
of deep diving ability and at the same time could have enabled examples, attempts to present the details of their life history
augmentation of body size This suggests again that avail- and to clarify the differences among them The fact that much
ability of abundant food resources was a factor that allowed of the biological information has been collected by myself
increased body size using constant methodology allows easy comparisons
Our knowledge of the longevity of toothed whales is lim-
ited to a few species, in which it varies from around 20 years
in harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and finless por- I.2 FISHERIES FOR CETACEANS
poises (see Chapter 8), which are both members of the family
I.2.1 old WhAlIng ActIvItIes
Phocoenidae, to 70–80 years in Baird’s beaked whales (see
Chapter 13) and sperm whales It is believed that the oldest large-scale commercial whal-
Toothed whales capture food organisms one by one, which ing was established in the Basque region by the twelfth
is a primitive or undeveloped way of feeding compared with century, for the North Atlantic right whales (Francis 1990;
that of the baleen whales However, toothed whales have Ellis 2009) Following the decline of the species along the
achieved the ability to use underwater sound for locating food European coasts, the industry moved offshore and reached the
(Au 2009) They further developed the use of sound for com- Newfoundland coast in the middle of the sixteenth century to
munication between individuals of the same species, which hunt North Atlantic right whales as well as bowhead whales
xviii Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
Immediately following the discovery of bowhead whales in whales to North Pacific right whales and bowhead whales
Spitsbergen in 1607, the British and Dutch sent fleets of sail- (Francis 1990), mainly for their baleen The damage to sperm
ing ships equipped with whale boats for chasing and harpoon- whale stocks in the Japan ground caused by American whal-
ing whales in that region The Basque whalers were employed ing has not been well understood
in the enterprise The operation further moved to Davis Strait, Kasuya (2009) reviewed the Japanese whaling activi-
to Baffin Bay, and then to Hudson Bay and ended in the early ties within and outside Japanese territory The oldest record
twentieth century due to the collapse of the whale stocks of Japanese commercial whaling is from around 1570 in
The fisheries produced whale meat as well as oil and other Mikawa Bay (34°45′N, 137°00′E) on the Pacific coast of
products when they operated close to the European market central Japan, but it is generally thought that the operation
but produced only oil and baleen plates after their operation started earlier The whalers used hand harpoons as those used
expanded to distant grounds Whale oil was tried out on the for dolphin and swordfish hunting This technology spread
coast near the whaling ground or in the fleets’ mother ports eastward to become Baird’s beaked whaling at Katsuyama
from blubber stored in casks The latter method was appli- (35°07′N, 139°50′E), Chiba Prefecture, at the entrance of
cable only in a cold climate Tokyo Bay, and continued up to the late nineteenth cen-
In North America, immigrants started whaling in the mid- tury It also spread westward along the Pacific coast to the
seventeenth century for baleen whales that were then abundant Shima Peninsula (around 34°20′N, 136°45′N), Kii Peninsula
on the east coast (Starbuck 1964) They took North Atlantic (33°26′N–34°14′N, 135°05′E–136°15′E), and Tosa (southern
right whales and humpback whales The story went that one Shikoku in 32°45′N–33°30′N, 132°45′E–134°30′E) and to the
of their whaling vessels was blown offshore in 1712, met a southwestern coast of the Sea of Japan or Tsushima Strait area
group of sperm whales, and killed one of them This was the in longitudes 128°30′E–131°30′E The fisheries took North
start of the sperm whale fishery called “American whaling” Pacific right whales, humpback whales, and gray whales
or, later, “south sea whaling” This whaling rapidly expanded, Then, around 1675–1677, the hand-harpoon whalers started
accelerated by the timing when whales in the coastal ground net whaling, in which whales were entangled in nets to limit
were becoming scarce and the demand increased for sperma- their movement and then harpooned This method rapidly
ceti used in the candle industry, and the fishery was joined spread to central and western Japan (not to Baird’s beaked
by various countries including the United Kingdom and the whaling at Katsuyama) The method enabled capture of fast-
Netherlands The blubber was removed from the carcasses moving balaenopterids but required large numbers of work-
alongside the ship, cut into smaller pieces on the deck, and ers For example, Tsuro Whaling in Tosa, Shikoku, employed
cooked in try-pots placed on try-works made of bricks on 464 workers during the season, which was in winter, in addi-
the ship’s deck The scrap blubber pieces from which the tion to the temporary workers employed for particular catches
oil was tried out were used as fuel for the try-works The oil (Yamada 1902, in Japanese) Such inefficiency and operations
was stored in barrels, and the cruise continued sometimes for limited to the coast were the weak points of these fisheries,
years until the ship had a full load which ended operations in the late nineteenth century
These sperm whaling vessels rushed from one newly found Section I of this book mentions some of the old Japanese
ground to another This type of operation is the most destruc- whaling in relation to the dolphin fisheries, and Appendix B
tive from the management point of view, although such an lists some useful readings about the history of Japanese whal-
operation pattern is not limited to whaling The whalers ing (Appendix B is omitted in this English version)
entered the South Pacific in 1789, arrived in Hawaii in 1819,
and first entered the western North Pacific region called the
I.2.2 norWegIAn-type WhAlIng
Japan ground in 1820 or 1821 (Starbuck 1964) The Japan
ground was the last sperm whale ground reached by American Most of the old whaling methods, except net whaling, were
whaling that cruised globally By the 1840s, it expanded able to capture only slow-swimming targets of low specific
operations to the Sea of Japan, Okhotsk Sea, Gulf of Alaska, gravity Such species had become scarce by the middle of the
and Bering Sea, mainly on North Pacific right whales, and nineteenth century However, a large number of balaenopter-
entered the Arctic Ocean via the Bering Strait in 1848, hunt- ids left in the ocean were hard to capture using rowing boats
ing the population of bowhead whales there nearly to extinc- and hand harpoons assisted by small firearms because these
tion American whaling ceased in the early twentieth century whales swam fast and the carcasses sank
(Tower 1907; Park 1994, in Japanese), perhaps due, at least to A new technology to take balaenopterids was invented in
some degree, to the depletion of whale stocks 1868 by Sven Foyn, a Norwegian It is called Norwegian-type
American whaling off Japan is believed to have contrib- whaling or modern whaling, in which tethered whaling har-
uted, by depleting baleen whale stocks, to the decline of poons are shot from a canon mounted on a steam or diesel-
Japanese coastal net whaling Near the end of American whal- driven catcher boat If the harpoon penetrates a whale, two
ing, the profitability of sperm whale hunting declined, which things occur: a grenade on the tip of the harpoon explodes
was affected by new industrial products such as coal gas to kill or injure the whale, and the arms on the harpoon head
for lighting and oils from fish, cottonseeds, and rape seeds open to prevent the harpoon from drawing out This combined
Petroleum discovered in Pennsylvania had a particularly two technologies of the time, that is, steam sailing and an
strong effect on whaling Thus, the target shifted from sperm explosive harpoon fired from a canon This whaling method
Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men xix
rapidly spread to many oceans, for example, to the western 1920s, and British and Norwegian whalers made a 5-year
North Pacific in 1889 by a Russian and to the Antarctic Ocean agreement to lay up some whaling fleets to control oil pro-
in 1904 by a Norwegian duction Under these circumstances, there were concerns
After several short attempts by pioneers, the Nihon Enyo whether the balaenopterid species might also follow the fate
Gyogyo Co Ltd was founded in 1899 in Senzaki (34°23′N, previously met by the right whales, the gray whales, and the
131°12′E), Yamaguchi Prefecture, and succeeded in establish- sperm whales With the leadership by the League of Nations,
ing Norwegian-type whaling in Japan The operation began an international meeting was held in Geneva, Switzerland,
along the coast of the Korean Peninsula and expanded to north- and 26 countries including Switzerland signed the Geneva
ern Kyushu and Kii Peninsula and then to the Sanriku Region Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in September 1931
(Pacific coast of northern Honshu in 38°N–41°N) Japanese (which came into effect only in January 1936) This was fol-
whaling before World War II (WWII) also operated off the lowed by the London Agreement signed in June 1937, which
coasts of Taiwan, Korea, and the Kuril Islands Japanese factory was to apply until June 30, 1938, but was not ratified until
ship whaling first operated in the Antarctic in the 1934/1935 May 7, 1938 The agreement of 1937 was amended by another
season and in the North Pacific in the 1940 summer season London meeting in June 1938 (which came into effect in
Japanese postwar whaling under foreign jurisdiction operated December 1938) These agreements included minimum body
in Taiwan (1957–1959), Okinawa (1958–1965), Brazil (1959– size by species, prohibition of taking mothers accompanied
1984), Canada (1962–1972), Chile (1964–1968), South Georgia by calves, full utilization of the carcass, protection of “right
(1963/1964–1965/1966), Peru (1967–1985), and the Philippines whales” (right whales of both hemispheres, bowhead whales,
(1983–1984) (Tato 1985, in Japanese; Kasuya 2009) pygmy right whales), and regulated take of gray whales (listed
Let us try to understand the progress of overfishing through in the 1937 agreement) Japan did not sign these agreements
looking at the statistics of Antarctic pelagic whaling The total (Omura et al. 1942; Omura 2000, both in Japanese) WWII
catch reached a peak in the 1937/1938 season, when 31 fleets started in Europe in September 1939, and the number of fleets
caught a total of 28,871 blue whale units (BWU) (14,826 blue operating in the Antarctic decreased from 28 in the 1939/1940
whales, 26,457 fin whales, 2,039 humpback whales, 6 sei season to 11 in 1940/1941 and to 0 in 1941/1942 (Japan sent
whales) The BWU is a conversion system based on average 6 fleets in both the 1939/1940 and 1940/1941 seasons)
oil production; one BWU equals 1 blue whale, 2 fin whales, The first postwar Antarctic whaling was carried out with
25 humpback whales, or 6 sei whales Whalers of the time did nine fleets in 1945/1946 season (Japan made its first postwar
not consider Antarctic mike whales as targets, so they did not Antarctic operation in the 1946/1947 season with two fleets)
have a BWU conversion for them (Taxonomists distinguish Prior to these events, with the expectation that Antarctic whal-
this species, B. bonaerensis, from the northern minke whale ing must be resumed very soon to supply edible oil, seven allied
Balaenoptera acutorostrata, but this book does not necessar- countries met in London in January 1944 and agreed to set a
ily follow the usage if confusion can be avoided) The year catch limit of 16,000 BWU for the first postwar pelagic whal-
of peak catch for each species tells of the shift from larger to ing in the Antarctic They again met in London in November
smaller species The blue whale catch peaked in the 1930/1931 1945 to agree on the same catch limit and some amendments
season (28,325 blue whales) and take of the species was prohib- of the whaling season Then in November 1946, the whaling
ited beginning in 1965/1966, fin whale in the 1937/1938 season nations met again in Washington, DC, and 15 nations signed
(26,457 fin whales), which was followed by occasional peaks at the current ICRW in December 1946 The convention was
a similar level during the 1953/1954 to 1961/1962 seasons, with structured along the lines of the earlier agreements, including
protection beginning in the 1976/1977 season, and humpback a catch limit of 16,000 BWU (Brandt 1948) The catch limit
whale in the 1958/1959 season (2,394 humpback whales) with of 16,000 BWU was maintained until the 1952/1953 season
protection since the 1963/1964 season Humpback whales in and became one of the major causes of the depletion of whale
the breeding grounds in lower latitudes were overfished ear- stocks This convention came to effect in November 1948, and
lier, and various catch regulations existed, so the catch trend Japan joined it in April 1951 As of March 2009, the conven-
of the species in the Antarctic pelagic whaling does not reflect tion had 84 member countries
the status of stocks A peak of sei whale catch occurred in The Convention of 1946, which is composed of a preamble
the 1964/1965 season (19,874 sei whales) and that species was and 11 articles, identifies the equal rights of the member coun-
protected beginning in the 1978/1979 season Fishing of the tries and agrees on 4 principles that (1) whales are the com-
smallest species, the Antarctic minke whale, peaked in the mon property of human communities, (2) whales are fishery
1976/1977 season (7,900 minke whales) Against the decision resources, (3) whale resources should be scientifically man-
of the IWC to prohibit the commercial take of minke whales aged, and (4) a harvest is allowed only on whales that can
beginning in the 1985/1986 season, Japan continued it until the sustain exploitation The schedule attached to the convention
1986/1987 season and then started taking the species for sci- describes the details of whaling regulation such as catch quo-
entific purposes (since the 1987/1988 season, see Chapter 7) tas and whaling seasons and can be amended with a 3/4 major-
Similar shifts in targeted species occurred in the North Pacific ity of the voting members of the IWC, which is composed of
(Kasuya 2009) commissioners nominated by the contracting governments
As the number of fleets increased in the Antarctic, over- Any contracting government will not be bound by a deci-
production of whale oil became evident beginning in the late sion if it presents an objection to the decision within 90 days
xx Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
(further detailed rule exists) The commission now meets every opposed the decision made in 1982 to end commercial whal-
2 years to determine the regulations for the next two seasons ing Thus, Norway continues hunting several hundred minke
It seems to me that this convention is based on an under- whales in the North Atlantic under objection to the morato-
standing that whaling is a fishing activity taking whales, but rium The fourth is whaling with reservation Iceland opposed
it does not seem to have a definition of whales For example, the IWC decision to close commercial whaling and left the
it is unclear whether “whales” in the convention means any ICRW When it rejoined the ICRW, Iceland made a reserva-
species of Cetacea or excludes small species such as dol- tion about the prohibition of commercial whaling In the 2010
phins and porpoises This ambiguity is still causing argu- season, Iceland caught 59 minke whales and 142 fin whales
ments about the competence of the convention It was likely The fifth exclusion from the moratorium is whaling for sci-
that many contracting governments did not imagine in 1946 entific purposes under a special national permit, which is
that the small cetaceans would be a problem of management detailed in the next section In addition to whaling under sci-
in the future and that the hastily created convention could entific permit, Japan allows small-type whaling and dolphin
not later clean up structural deficits The current IWC works and porpoise fisheries to take nine species of small cetaceans,
on the tentative understanding that all the toothed whales with the understanding that small cetaceans are outside the
other than the sperm whales are “small cetaceans” and that IWC competence and thus the fisheries are not affected by the
the IWC considers their scientific aspects but not their man- IWC decision to end commercial whaling
agement, such as setting quotas The Japanese government This book deals with Japanese dolphin and porpoise fish-
in its domestic documents defined “small cetaceans” as ceta- eries in Chapters 1 through 3, Japanese small-type whaling
ceans other than sperm whales and two species of the genus in Chapters 4 through 7, and the biology of small cetaceans
Hyperoodon The intention seems to exclude from “small exploited by these fisheries in Chapters 8 through 15
cetaceans” all the species on which Japan has accepted the
competence of the IWC
In 1982, the IWC decided to temporarily set catch the I.2.3 scIentIfIc WhAlIng In JApAn
quota at zero for all commercial whaling operations starting Article VIII of the ICRW signed in 1946 states the following:
with the 1985/1986 Antarctic season and the 1986 coastal sea-
son This action has been called the moratorium Some whal- Notwithstanding anything contained in this Convention any
ing operations were excluded from the ban The first was the Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a
whaling by countries that are not members of the ICRW For special permit authorizing that national to kill, take and treat
example, Canadian Inuit hunt bowhead whales and the people whales for purpose of scientific research…
on Lembata Island in Indonesia hunt sperm whales These
operations are of small scale and apparently similar to the It also states that “any whales taken under these special per-
aboriginal subsistence whaling of the member countries The mits shall so far as practicable be processed and the proceeds
second type of whaling is “aboriginal subsistence whaling” shall be dealt with in accordance with directions issued by
by the ICRW members, which is small-scale whaling for local the Government” The Japanese government entered objec-
consumption allowed by the ICRW for Inuit in Alaska and tion to the 1982 decision to stop commercial whaling but
Greenland, Chukchi in northeastern Siberia, and some other informed the IWC in July 1986 of its intention to withdraw
communities (Table I1) The third is whaling under objection, the objection at the end of the 1986/1987 whaling season (the
which is allowed for the member countries of the ICRW that opening and closing dates of the season varied with whaling
TABLE I.1
Quotas for Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling for 2008–2012 Seasons Agreed by the International Whaling
Commission, Which Are Either Single-Year or Block Quotas for 5 Years with Additional Annual Maximum Limits
Region (Country) Bowhead Whale Gray Whale, East Stocka Humpback Whale Fin Whale Minke Whale
Alaska (USA) 280/5 yearsb
Chukotka (Russia) Part of the Alaska quota 620/5 yearsc
Washington State (USA) Part of the Chukotka quota
Greenland (Denmark) 2/5 years 19/year 212/year
Bequia (St Vincent and Grenadines) 20/5 years
b A few to be allocated to the Chukchi Tribe with the agreement between the two countries
c A few to be allocated to the Makah Tribe with the agreement between the two countries
Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men xxi
types and targeted species) (Chapter 7) About 1 year before industries and returned to a local concern when Norwegian-
this, under a request made in April 1985 by Kazuo Shima, type whaling was successfully established in Japan around
the then IWC commissioner of Japan as well as the vice- the turn of the century
director general of the Fisheries Agency, and Ikuo Ikeda, the The second rise of Japanese dolphin and porpoise fisheries
then director of the Far Seas Fisheries Research Laboratory occurred during the period from the beginning of the full-
(FSRL), established and chaired a team to plan Japanese scale China–Japan war (which started in 1937) to the post-
scientific whaling The team proposed a scientific whal- WWII period The government promoted hunting of sperm
ing project that aimed at estimating the age-dependent whales and various species of small cetaceans to obtain mate-
natural mortality of Antarctic minke whales, and the sci- rials for leather, which was important for the military During
entific whaling for the first stage of the project started in WWII, male labor was drafted and fishing vessels were com-
the 1987/1988 Antarctic season The current second-stage mandeered by the military Offshore fishing became risky
program started in the autumn of 2005 and aims to under- because of air raids and submarine attacks, so women and
stand the marine ecosystem surrounding whales It includes elderly people on the Izu coast (Pacific coast of central Japan
take of a maximum of 1415 whales of 7 species in the North in 34°36′N–35°05′N, 138°45′E–13910′E) shifted their atten-
Pacific and Antarctic The project has no stated time limit tion more to dolphin hunting in nearshore waters A shortage
(see Chapter 7) Iceland also had a short scientific whaling of food during and after the war also helped the rise of new
program after the cessation of commercial whaling small-cetacean hunting in Hyogo Prefecture (coast of south-
Japanese scientific whaling has received various criticisms ern Sea of Japan in longitude 134°20′E–135°30′E) and on
from around the world, which can be grouped into the follow- the Sanriku and Izu coasts Many of these fishery operations
ing five categories: (1) interpretation of the convention, that is, shrank during the 1960s
Article VIII of the convention does not allow such large-scale The third increase in prices occurred from the 1980s to the
and long-term operations; (2) suspicion about real intention, 1990s, which included a period of gradual decline of Japanese
that is, the real and hidden intention of the project might be commercial whaling and its final cessation by March 1988
for economics and survival of the whaling industry; (3) sci- The price of small-cetacean meat increased as it was sold to
entific and technical aspect, that is, such studies are unneces- fill the vacancy left by drying up of the whale meat supply,
sary, because nonlethal methods can be used, or the objectives and the catch of small cetaceans increased More recently,
cannot be achieved with the methods proposed; (4) scientific an oversupply of whale meat from Japanese scientific whal-
ethics, that is, it violates the ethics of scientists to kill so many ing has caused reduction in the price of small-cetacean meat
large wild animals for so many years for scientific research; These developments are detailed in Section I of this book
(5) whales are no longer fisheries resources, that is, 60 years As Japanese fisheries for small cetaceans were economi-
have passed since the ICRW and divergent views on whales cally minor compared to whaling, the government did not
have emerged Some details of these criticisms are in Kasuya pay much attention to their management until the mid-1980s,
(2003, 2005, both in Japanese, 2007, 2008, in Japanese) and when it started to manage the fisheries in response to criti-
Ishii (2011, in Japanese) The Scientific Committee of the IWC cisms emanating from the IWC since 1975 The action was
reviews the scientific whaling program only from the scien- too late, because the dolphin fishery off the Izu coasts, which
tific point of view, that is, the third item mentioned earlier once recorded an annual take of 10,000–20,000 striped dol-
phins, had already crashed due to overfishing Now it is rare to
find striped dolphins in Japanese coastal waters
I.2.4 dolphIn And porpoIse fIsherIes In JApAn
Currently, Japanese fisheries are allowed an annual take of
The history of Japanese fisheries for dolphins and porpoises over 15,000 small cetaceans of 8 species Most of them, with
is dealt with in Section I of this book, including Japanese ter- the exception of some live specimens that are sold to aquari-
minology used in the fisheries and their relationships with ums, are used for human consumption In addition to these,
whaling Until the mid-nineteenth century, hunting dolphins the Japanese government permits a small-type whaling take
and porpoises in Japan was commercially minor and of small of 66 Baird’s beaked whales, which is considered a species
scale to satisfy only local demand Since then, there were outside of the competence of the ICRW
several occasions when the dolphin and porpoise fisheries This book describes the conservation biology of six of the
attracted the attention of the country nine species of small cetaceans currently hunted in Japan
The first was during the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury or just after the Meiji Revolution, when the new govern-
I.3 OTHER THREATS TO CETACEANS
ment stimulated the development of the economy and searched
for possibilities for new industries The government investi- Threats to cetaceans by Japanese whaling and dolphin and
gated the status of dolphin and porpoise fisheries in Japan in porpoise fisheries were outlined in the previous sections
an attempt to stimulate them However, the small-cetacean Cetaceans are also threatened by other human activities and
fisheries could not cope with whaling for large cetaceans marine pollution (Marsh et al. 2003; Reeves et al. 2003) The
in terms of both quantity of products and economic value threats are briefly summarized as follows and are only occa-
produced, and they lost the attention of the government and sionally mentioned further in this book
xxii Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
I.3.1 IntentIonAl tAkes to reduce the mortality The Japanese government collects
mortality data from the fishermen, but they document only
People in the northern polar regions hunt white whales and a minor fraction of the real mortality Heavy mortality of
narwhals for food, and people in Sri Lanka consume dolphins finless porpoises is not limited to Japan Korean scientists
taken with hand harpoon or found in their gill nets Hand- reported to the Scientific Committee of the IWC the bycatch
harpoon hunting of dolphins for human consumption or for of over 200 finless porpoises in coastal gill-net fisheries
use as fish bait is known also from the coasts of Africa and (IWC 2010)
South America (Read 2008; IWC 2011) Drift and fixed gill-net fisheries of small scale are still
Statistics of these catches are often incomplete or absent, operated in various coastal seas as well as in large rivers of
and abundance estimates for the affected cetacean populations the world and remain a great threat to small cetaceans, such
are often lacking Because of the usual reticent behavior of fish- as the two species of finless porpoises, Irrawaddy dolphins,
ermen and the technical limitations in measuring these fishing Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, and several river dolphins
activities and takes, managing the affected cetacean populations Sound emitters called “pingers” attached to gill nets have
is not an easy task In particular, the capture of freshwater dol- successfully reduced the mortality of small cetaceans on the
phins for fishing bait in the Amazon and Ganges-Brahmaputra European and North American coasts Further information
Rivers is an important ongoing conservation concern on incidental mortality of cetaceans is available in Perrin
et al. (1994)
I.3.2 IncIdentAl MortAlIty of cetAceAns In fIsherIes
Large-scale pelagic gill-net fisheries for salmon, squids, and
I.3.3 shIp strIkes
tunas operated or continue to operate in various regions The Dolphins and porpoises are often attracted to vessels and play
nets are called drift nets because they are not anchored to the in the bow wave, but in other cases, vessels may strike ceta-
bottom These fisheries incidentally catch cetaceans, seals, sea- ceans and injure or kill them Such incidents can be unnoticed
birds, and turtles Even if fishermen discard or lose these fish- by the vessels but may be later confirmed through examination
ing nets, they remain on the surface and continue to kill marine of stranded carcasses Coastal species of whales such as gray
animals before they sink to the bottom or become stranded on whales and right whales often have healed scars evidently caused
the beach Attempts were unsuccessful to effectively reduce by vessel strikes Increasing vessel speed and the development
such mortality, and at the United Nations General Assembly in of new hull designs increase the frequency of ship strikes The
December 1989, a resolution was passed to ban high-seas large- Scientific Committee of the IWC has started an effort to esti-
scale gill-net fisheries Japan accepted this in December 1992 mate the mortality of cetaceans inflicted by ship strikes
and discontinued large drift-net operations in the North Pacific Attempts to reduce ship strikes are made on the east coast of
Minke whales are often killed in fixed trap nets along the the United States by notifying vessels of the positions of whales
Japanese coasts, and the carcasses have long been utilized for to vessels and by restricting transit routes in particular coastal
human consumption without the issue being paid much atten- portions of the habitat of North Atlantic right whales As far
tion by the surrounding community The Japanese government as I know, attempts by Japanese ship builders have failed to
twice changed the regulation of such takes In 1990, it became devise effective ways to detect submerged whales by sonar or to
legal to sell minke whales taken in trap nets for local consump- scare whales away from a high-speed passenger ship by sound
tion only; then in 2001, the rule changed to permit free trade in It should be noted that these kinds of acoustic devices can also
such takes (see Section 63) This resulted in a sudden increase contribute to the deterioration of the environment of whales by
in the number of minke whales taken in the Japanese trap-net possibly displacing them from their preferred habitat
fisheries from 10–20 to 120–130 per year (Table 16) The new
regulation provided an opportunity for hidden economic activi-
ties to surface A similar magnitude of minke whale mortality
I.3.4 cheMIcAl pollutIon
is also recorded for the Korean trap-net fisheries Any coastal We have discharged numerous chemicals into the environ-
cetaceans are vulnerable to capture in trap-net fisheries A par- ment through the activities of industry, agriculture, and urban
ticular problem is catches of species or populations that are cur- life They ultimately enter the ocean, and some of them are
rently recovering from past overexploitation, for example, the very stable in the ocean and can be accumulated in cetaceans
western stock of gray whales and the North Pacific right whale through the food web To make the situation worse, cetaceans
and regional humpback whale populations Although it is dif- often have limited ability to process those chemicals
ficult to regulate the net fisheries, it may be possible to modify Mercury has been discharged into the environment in
fishing gear or to establish a rescue system If there were an great amounts through burning of coal since the beginning
insurance system to cover damage to fishing gear due to whale- of the industrial revolution Although we do not have firm
rescue activities, it would help promote such rescue Because evidence on the effect on cetaceans, we know that for labora-
the fisheries utilize the oceans for private enterprise, they must tory animals and humans its accumulation in their systems
have responsibility for conservation has adverse effects on growth and the nervous system The
Fixed bottom gill nets in the Inland Sea of Japan are caus- total mercury contents in the muscle of toothed whales often
ing mortality of finless porpoises, but there are no attempts exceed the allowable limit of 04 ppm set by the Japanese
Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men xxiii
government for human consumption; there are concerns for I.3.7 other InterActIons WIth fIsherIes:
the health of the consumers of cetacean meat depredAtIon And ecologIcAl coMpetItIon
Chlorinated organic compounds such as pesticides, her-
bicides, PCBs, and dioxins are known to adversely affect Earlier I mentioned cases where cetaceans are killed or
immunity and reproduction of laboratory animals Some of wounded in fishing activities There are also cases where
these chemicals are known to be accumulated in the body of cetaceans steal fish from fishing gear, damage fishing gear, or
cetaceans disturb fishing operations (depredation) Because such behav-
Urban sewage and agricultural wastes cause increase in ior often involves learning by cetaceans, the use of sounds to
nitrogen and phosphorous level in coastal waters and can scare them away loses effect rapidly, and the development of
result in harmful algal blooms Plankton organisms in such effective defensive methods seems to be difficult A case of
blooms are often poisonous, and the toxin moves to oysters dolphin and fishery interactions in the Iki Island area is dealt
and fishes that eat the plankton There are cases of death of with in Section 34 of this book
humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins due to eating fish A further basic problem is the possible interaction between
carrying planktonic toxins fisheries and cetaceans through consumption of marine organ-
Chapter 8 of this book discusses the chemical pollution of isms Fishermen often consider that fewer cetaceans in the
Japanese finless porpoises ocean will result in more fish for fishermen and have started a
political movement in Japan pushing this view We have seen
such a case in the Iki situation and still see it in propaganda pro-
I.3.5 WhAle WAtchIng duced by the Japanese whaling industry However, we should
Watching whales, dolphins, and porpoises has become pop- understand that such an idea is still only a hypothesis The
ular worldwide and was once thought of solely as a benign Scientific Committee of the IWC has stated that they do not
use of cetaceans However, it is now known that cetaceans have an appropriate ecosystem model to examine this hypoth-
change behavior responding to the close approach of vessels, esis and that they do not have sufficient data to put in the model
and there is no reason to believe that whale watching activity if they had one It is worth noting that marine fish populations
is entirely harmless to the cetaceans being watched were probably in better condition in the nineteenth century or
It is common to have rules for whale watching vessels before the depletion of rorqual populations due to heavy exploi-
about how to approach the animals or the minimum distance tation by modern whaling in the twentieth century
to be kept between the animals and the vessels, and it is usual
to prohibit feeding the animals In Japan, such rules are only I.3.8 clIMAte chAnge
voluntary regulations of local whale watching operations, and
departure from them is a problem The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago and was fol-
lowed by a short period of climate that was warmer than at
present During this warm period, the Arctic Ocean had open
I.3.6 sound pollutIon
water in summer and cetaceans probably found opportunities
While cetaceans use underwater sound for communication to move between the North Atlantic and the North Pacific
between individuals of the same species and detection of food Some tropical delphinids could have moved between the
or underwater obstacles (see Section 11), there are numerous South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean around Cape Agulhas
human activities that emit underwater sound that is strong (Section 1237)
enough to harm the acoustic environment of cetaceans, for Because the existing cetacean species have experienced
example, cruising vessels, ice breakers, underwater construc- such past climate changes, it would be possible for most of
tion, underwater explosions, air guns used for seismic survey, them to survive, at least as species, through future climate
certain scientific equipment, and military sonar (Tyack 2008) change due to anthropogenic causes However, we should note
The sound made by baleen whales overlaps with vessel that the speed of expected climate change could be over 10
noise in the range of 20–200 Hz The acoustic environment times faster than in the past Climate change may proceed
of baleen whales has been adversely affected since preindus- within a few generations of the long-lived whales, and these
trial days, and their communication range is believed to have species have not yet recovered from damage done by human
diminished Underwater explosions can damage the hearing activities Under these conditions, we have to be uncertain
organ of cetaceans permanently or temporarily or otherwise about the outcome for the whales
operate to dislocate them temporarily To make the situation worse, the expected climate change
Our understanding of the background of mass strand- will be accompanied by an exploding human population and
ing of cetaceans is limited However, military sonar is now destructive human technology My particular concern is for the
known to be as a cause of some mass stranding of cetaceans populations of riverine and coastal cetaceans They have already
Examination of stranded animals resulted in an interpreta- been affected by human activities, and their future survival will
tion that military sonar forces some cetaceans to divert from be most influenced by habitat modifications as a result of human
their normal diving pattern and contract compression sickness response to climate change, such as river water extraction for
followed by stranding The beaked whales are believed to be irrigation and coastal construction Extinction of the baiji
particularly vulnerable to the sounds around the turn of the century is believed to have been due to the
xxiv Introduction: Whales, Dolphins, and Men
destruction of its habitat by humans, such as by water pollution, Mann, J, Connor, RC, Tyack, PL, and Whitehead, H (eds) 2000
incidental mortality in fisheries, decline in prey fish population Cetacean Societies, Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales.
due to fisheries and coastal construction, and vessel traffic University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 433pp
Marsh, H, Arnold, P, Freeman, M, Haynes, D, Laist, D, Read,
Future climate change might change ocean circulation and
A, Reynolds, J, and Kasuya, T 2003 Strategies for conserv-
marine productivity, which influences fisheries as well as the ing marine mammals pp 1–19 In: Gale, N, Hindell, M, and
survival of cetaceans, and we do not know how we might be Kirkwood, R (eds) Marine Mammals: Fisheries, Tourism
able to respond to them and Management Issues. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood,
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Authors
Toshio Kasuya (author and translator) joined the Whales William F. Perrin (edited translation), after 4 years in the Air
Research Institute (Tokyo) after graduating from a fisheries Force as a Czech linguist, received his PhD in zoology from the
course at the University of Tokyo in 1961 and started study- University of California, Los Angeles in 1972 He served for
ing life history of great whales being exploited in Japan His 46 years as fishery biologist at the NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries
subsequent scientific activities and affiliations are the life Science Center in La Jolla, California, working on systematics,
history of small cetaceans at the Ocean Research Institute, ecology, and conservation of tropical cetaceans He received
University of Tokyo (1966–1983); the life history and man- the NOAA Scientific Research and Achievement Award, 1979;
agement of small cetaceans at the Far Seas Fisheries Research Department of Commerce Bronze Medal, 1994; the KS
Laboratory, Fisheries Agency (1983–1997); and marine mam- Norris Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Marine
mal biology and teaching at Mie University (1997–2001) and Mammalogy, 2011; and the NOAA Distinguished Career
Teikyo University of Science and Technology (2001–2006) Award, 2013 He served at various times as appointed councilor
He participated in the activities of the Scientific Committee for aquatic mammals of the Convention on Migratory Species,
of the International Whaling Commission (1982–2013) He chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the US Marine
studied sperm whales, eight species of small cetaceans under Mammal Commission, editor of Marine Mammal Science,
the threats of human activities in Japan, river dolphins, and chair of the Cetacean Specialist Group of the International
dugong, and then he retired from research and education Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, mem-
activities in 2013 Among his achievements is finding the ber of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling
extended postreproductive lifetime of some female ceta- Commission, and research associate in vertebrate zoology of
ceans He received awards from the Society for Conservation the Smithsonian Institution He is now retired and working
Biology (1994), the Society for Marine Mammalogy (2007), with his wife, Dr Louella Dolar, on biology and conservation
and the Japanese Society of Mammalogists (2013) of marine mammals in Southeast Asia
xxv
Section I
History of Japanese Cetacean Fisheries
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