Publication Name

Science Direct

Author(s)

Scott Baker and Mark Costellow

In the December 2011 issue of Biological Conservation, Scott Baker, the associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute and a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon State University, and Mark Costello published an editorial in response to a paper in the same issue that reported that the human consumption of marine mammals, including cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, walruses) and sirenians (manatees, dugongs), has increased in recent decades. “Considering the media attention given to stopping the hunting of whales for human consumption, it may come as a surprise that people are eating more marine mammal species than ever before,” they write. “It may also be a surprise that this consumption includes people in many developed, as well as undeveloped, countries. When the unintentional killing of marine mammals in the form of fisheries ‘by-catch’ is included, a total of 92 species of marine mammals have been eaten by humans in 125 countries. Without agreed international management authority, the prospects for banning or regulating the expanding exploitation of marine mammals for human consumption will fall to local, national, or regional agencies. In less developed regions of the world, poverty and hunger are likely to be underlying causes of the increase in consumption of marine mammals. These conditions present formidable impediments to top-down solutions to the regulation of exploitation and the conservation of marine or terrestrial species. In more developed countries, governments or agencies that allow the hunting of marine mammals will need to develop scientific management procedures to set sustainable quotas, taking into account the life history features of marine mammals. An imperative should be to find a mechanism for identifying and banning the hunting of species threatened with extinction or populations in decline.”

To read the full editorial, Who Eats Sea Meat? Expanding Human Consumption of Marine Mammals, visit the Science Direct website.