International Whaling Commission: International Decades of Cetacean Research: Whale...

Records of projects undertaken by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as part of the International Decade of Cetacean Research (IDCR), the Blue Whale Cruise, and the Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research (SOWER) programmes. These projects principally concerned surveying whale populations in the southern hemisphere. The raw data obtained in each cruise includes sightings, research effort, weather, ice-edge conditions, identification of whales using individual markings and photo-identification techniques, tissue sampling, and records relating to a range of other experimental activities.

The first set of records in this series comprised those for the seasons 1986/87 to 1991/92 inclusive, since at the time of opening this series the earlier and more recent records were still in use by IWC researchers at a number of locations around the world.

From 1996 International Whaling Commission

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Fishing

In 1972 the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm called for a ten year moratorium on commercial whaling. In response the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) recommended that, instead of a moratorium, support should be sought for a decade of intensified research on cetaceans. The IWC adopted this proposal at its 1972 annual meeting and agreed that the programme should be known as the International Decade of Cetacean Research (IDCR). The first detailed proposals emerged in 1974 and the IDCR was considered to have started in 1975.

By 1984, the end of the decade, the Scientific Committee was engaged in a "Comprehensive Assessment" of whale stocks and considered that, in this context, there was value in retaining the concept of the IDCR. Thus a second IDCR (1985 to 1994/5) continued from the original without a break.

The most extensive research activity under the IDCRs was a series of cruises each season from 1978/79 to 1994/95, designed primarily to assess the populations of minke whale in the Southern Hemisphere, mainly by means of recording whale sightings although other cetacean research was conducted as well. The number of vessels involved in the cruises varied from one to four.