Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 52.djvu/1505

 52 STAT.] IMULTILATERAL-REGULATION OF WHALING-JUNE 8, 1937 FINAL ACT. THE Conference, having this day signed an Agreement for the FinalAct. Regulation of Whaling, to take immediate effect, desires to add, for the consideration of the Governments represented at the Conference, the following observations:- 2. The Agreement is valid for one year and will, it is hoped, continue in force for future years, unless the Governments, or any of them, decide to the contrary. It is likely, in the opinion of the Conference, to go far towards maintaining the stock of whales, upon which the prosperity of the whaling industry depends. 3. Experience may prove, however, that further measures of con- servation are necessary or desirable. The Conference desires, there- fore, to suggest that certain further methods of conservation and of preventing wastage of whales should be examined by the Govern- ments concerned without delay, and that the Governments should take the necessary measures by legislation to place themselves in a position to impose such further regulations of whaling as experience may dictate. 4. The Agreement prescribes regulations mainly of general ap- plication to whaling from factory ships and land stations alike. The most important of these regulations are those requiring the observance of close seasons, prohibiting the taking of whales of certain species already threatened with extinction, prohibiting the taking of female whales with calves or suckling whales and of whales of different species below size limits prescribed for each species, requir- ing full commercial use to be made of every part of every whale taken, and limiting the time within which, from the time of catching, whales must be treated in a factory ship or land station as the case may be. The purpose of these regulations is to limit the number of whales killed and to prevent the waste of whale material. 5. Certain provisions of the Agreement, however, affect only pe- lagic whaling, in particular those provisions which absolutely prohibit pelagic whaling for baleen whales in certain large areas of the sea. This differentiation between whaling prosecuted by means of factory ships and by means of land stations needs explanation. It has been urged that whaling as hitherto prosecuted from some land stations, especially near the equatorial zone, has been wasteful and harmful because the physiological condition of the whales taken was such that their oil yield was low and because whales were taken at these stations when they were about to throw their calves. Against this it may be argued that the raising of the size limits for various species under the Agreement will greatly restrict the catch brought to the land stations, that the land stations, not enjoying the mobility of the factory ships, are already handicapped in the pursuit of whales, and that whatever catch they take is a comparatively insignificant fraction of the total catch. The Conference recommends that the 1467

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