Whaling—almost a Victory

• Published in: Oryx
• Main Author: Fitter, Richard
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1973
• Subjects: Nature and Landscape Conservation; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Rene; Huxley; Dubos; Blue whale
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0030605300011509; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0030605300011509

The whale has become a symbol of world concern for the preservation of wildlife, concern mostly by people who have not the faintest idea that there is more than one kind of whale, and who do not care about these distinctions anyway. So on the opening day of this year's International Whaling Commission meeting, June 25th, in London, readers of The Times were greeted with a half-page advertisement illustrated with a vertical picture of the blue whale, and titled ‘One is killed every 20 minutes. Is this carnage really necessary?’. The ensuing appeal for the implementation of the Stockholm Conference's call for a ten-year moratorium on commercial whaling was signed by twenty distinguished conservationists, headed by TRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and the Duke of Edinburgh, and nine conservation bodies, including the Fauna Preservation Society, which contributed £200 towards the cost. The FPS Chairman, Sir Peter Scott, and two Vice-Presidents, Sir Frank Fraser Darling and Sir Julian Huxley, were among the individual signatories, who also included the President and Director-General of IUCN, Commander Jacques Cousteau, Professors Jean Dorst and Rene Dubos, Dr Paul Ehrlich, Dr Thor Heyerdahl, Dr Konrad Lorenz, Dr Sicco Mansholt, and the Chairman of the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), Dr J. E. Smith.