Japan accused of falsifying whaling data
by Philip Oldfield from on (#ECYS)
Current whale population estimate could be wrong as Japanese fleets misreported number and size of sperm whales killed in 1960s, study finds
Japanese whaling fleets have been accused of systematically falsifying data on the number and size of sperm whales they killed in the late 1960s, calling into question our understanding of current whale populations.
A study has compared official Japanese whaling data submitted to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) with formerly secret internal Soviet whaling industry reports. The findings suggest the Japanese caught large amounts of small illegal-sized whales, but reported these as lower numbers of larger whales - for example, counting two smaller whales as one legal-sized animal.
