David @ Tokyo

Yet more good news from Australia about the booming Humpback population.

Nonetheless, the "Professor Harrison" reported believes that they must continue to be protected "absolutely and particularly at this vulnerable stage because [the stock] really is just now starting to show significant signs of increase"

Well, this isn't what we heard last year, when the humpback stock was "booming" at 10% per annum.

It's all so rather ironic. When there's not enough whales, it's all bad news, but even when you've got lots of them it's still bad news.

And what is Harrison's hangup about making sure the stock returns to it's pre-whaling size? When the population is growing that fast, there is plenty of surplus for humans to utilise. And even if/when the stock does recover to it's original size, then what? Do we think he'll then give the OK to commercial whaling again?
Of course at that stage, when the population hit's it natural peak (in a natural population boom / bust cycle), he'll point out that humpback numbers are falling, and thus whaling still shouldn't be permitted!

Mind you, if you check out his flash webpage you can see he's affiliated with paid-up "scientists" such as New Zealand's Scott Baker and Michael Donohue.

These guys obviously have an agenda, and no matter how good things get, they'll always find an angle to make it sound like the sky is going to fall.

UPDATE:
Some googling around for more info about this Proffesor Harrison turns up various similarly uninspiring news pieces, all lending weight to the conclusion that he is working to an agenda. It turns out that he is the "scientist" leading efforts to develop non-lethal whale ageing techniques, in an effort to undermine the rationalle for lethal research whaling.
He claims that thanks to this technique "this final excuse that's used for the need to establish the age of the whales will basically be removed as well" But wait! There's more!
"We have a wide range of (skin) samples already in the centre which will allow us to start establishing the technique, and then we'll be able to refine the details of that over the next couple of years,"

Ah... so he's GOING to develop a technique and he's got some samples, and in the meantime the Japanese should just sit tight, and trust that his technique is going to be accurate, worth it's weight in gold, and not just another sideshow? Yeah, right.

This leaves me with one question - how is he planning to confirm the validity of his guess work without having any factual age data to verify it against? My guess - he isn't. That's totally not his objective.

Labels: humpbacks, non-lethal research, Whaling