Japan disputes the findings, and the issue is likely to go to the IWC’s
infractions committee, which investigates breaches of IWC regulations. New
Zealand’s commissioner to the IWC, Jim McLay, wants the IWC to consider
adopting the genetic techniques to police the trade in whale meat.

Baker, from the University of Auckland, and fellow biologist Steve Palumbi
of the University of Hawaii took a portable laboratory to Japan in May
1993 to analyse whale meat on sale in supermarkets and restaurants. They
used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) – a technique for making millions
of copies of specific sequences of DNA – to home in on particular strands
of mitochondrial DNA. The researchers took sequences from 16 tissue samples
back to laboratories in New Zealand and Hawaii, where they compared them
with ‘type’ sequences from known species of whales and dolphins held at
GenBank in Maryland and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.

Most of the samples came from southern minke whale, which the Japanese
catch legally as part of their Antarctic scientific whaling programme. But
there were also samples from a North Pacific humpback whale, a North Atlantic
fin whale, a northern minke whale, an unidentified species of toothed whale,
and two unidentified species of dolphin. It has been illegal to hunt the
humpback since 1966, and all other species have been protected under the
IWC’s moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986.

Some meat could have come from whales caught legally before the moratorium,
or from whales caught under the ‘scientific’ programme since then. But Baker
is not convinced that all the meat comes from such sources. ‘My interpretation
is that there is an illegal trade in whale meat.’

Baker’s research was commissioned by EarthTrust, a conservation group
based in Hawaii. ‘This proves meat from endangered whales is being sold
in Japan today, and it is southern minke meat from Japanese scientific
whaling that has acted as a cover for it,’ says Don White of EarthTrust.

The technique may also remove one of the last justifications for scientific
whaling. ‘Japanese scientists can now get genetic material from a biopsy
dart instead of killing the whales and grinding up their livers to get mitochondrial
DNA,’ says White.

The IWC is discussing ways to verify that whalers take only what they
should. Delegates at the meeting in Mexico are preparing to vote on whether
to resume commercial whaling under the revised management plan (RMP), which
calculates how many whales it is ‘safe’ to catch. Baker says the study demonstrates
that it is now possible to police the trade by identifying meat from animals
killed illegally. ‘Accurate genetic knowledge of whale species and geographic
variants will be required for the effective verification of the RMP if
the IWC votes for a return to commercial whaling,’ he says.

Japan’s Joint Deputy Commissioner to the IWC, Masayuki Kamatsu, refutes
Baker’s findings. ‘Dr Baker has made really misleading conclusions. There
needs to be more precise and reliable research. At this point the study
is based on imprecise information and is totally unreliable,’ he says.

Baker argues that he has used widely accepted genetic and statistical
techniques to identify the Japanese samples and match them to reference
DNA: ‘We are 90 to 95 per cent confident of the matchings.’

Wetas are among the country’s oldest inhabitants. When New Zealand
broke away from the supercontinent of Gond-wana 80 million years ago, the
wetas were already there. In the absence of any native mammals, the wetas
filled the same niche as mice and rats elsewhere. When human settlers brought
rats, hedgehogs and stoats, the wetas had to compete for food, and also
became food for the new predators. Today they survive only on predator-free
islands and above the snow line where mammals have not ventured.

Now biologists at the Department of Conservation (DOC) want to reintroduce
wetas to some of their old haunts. But before risking moving wetas from
their rat-free strongholds, the conservationists need to know much more
about them and their breeding habits.

Researchers at Victoria University in Wellington and Massey University
at Palmerston North are fitting giant wetas with radio tags and tiny night-lights
so that they can track where they go and find out what they do after dark.

Mary McIntyre, an entomologist at Victoria University, has attached
tiny radio tags to two species of weta. The tags, weighing 1.4 grams, are
secured to the front of the thorax with a plastic sealant.

Using the tags, she has found that the Cook Strait weta, which grows
to 12 centimetres long, ranges up to 56 metres a day. In late summer they
gather in pairs, the males trailing the females. ‘Wetas have a musky smell
and we think the females leave a pheromone trail for the males to follow.
It may be possible to use the pheromones in a lure to catch our specimens.’

McIntyre is also tagging New Zealand’s rarest large weta, the Middle
Island tusked weta, which is found only on one 10-hectare island. The Middle
Island weta, which can reach 10 centimetres long and weigh 28 grams, has
prominent tusks at the base of its jaw. Some scientists think it is distinctive
enough to belong to a separate genus, Hemiandrus.

Only a few hundred tusked wetas are thought to survive. This is too
few to risk moving any to new sites or to take more into captivity. Three
pairs are held in captivity at a breeding centre near Wellington.

In similar research, Murray Potter of Massey University has mounted
tiny green and orange night-lights onto giant Mahoenui wetas so that he
can follow their night-time activities. He has observed dramatic seasonal
changes in behaviour, surprising variations in diet, and he suspects that
the insects are monogamous.

The first batch of 100 captive-bred Mahoenui wetas were recently released
into the wild in an attempt to establish a new population. In the next stage
of the project, batches of three pairs of Mahoenui wetas will be released
into enclosures designed to protect them from predators. Each female is
expected to lay up to 300 eggs.

If the project is successful the DOC plans to captive-breed and release
Middle Island tusked wetas and the largest giant weta, the wetapunga, which
grows up to 25 centimetres (including antennae), and can weigh more than
70 grams.

Spurr says New Zealand has one of the worst wasp problems in the world.
The culprits are two species accidentally imported from Europe earlier this
century: the common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, and the German wasp, Vespula
germanica. The insects thrive in the climate of New Zealand’s South Island,
and build as many as 75 nests per hectare, a much higher density than in
Europe.

The wasps do not have their natural predators, and Spurr believes they
may be upsetting the ecological balance by preying on native insects and
young birds, and by competing for food. They also suck the juice from grapes
and compete for food with bees.

Sulfluramid is an organofluorine which has been used against leafcutter
ants in Brazil and cockroaches in the US, but has not yet been registered
as a wasp poison. If approved by the New Zealand Pesticides Board it could
be used by the public.

The new bait combination is a breakthrough, says Spurr, because sulfluramid
takes up to three days to have an effect, and foraging worker wasps take
it back to the nest to feed the larvae, queen and other workers. This is
better than the present method of using sodium monofluoracetate, which is
faster acting and more toxic than sulfluramid to humans and other animals.
‘Another advantage is that the fish bait is highly attractive to wasps but
not bees,’ says Spurr.