A review of the criteria used to assess insensibility and death in hunted whales compared to other species

Abstract

This review addresses the diagnosis of insensibility and death in various species so as to evaluate the validity of the current criteria used to judge death in hunted whales by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The only other species in which official criteria of death have been formulated is humans and these are controversial with the kernel of the debate being the definition of brain death. In slaughter animals, the moment of insensibility is regarded as the most important criterion and the issue has received scientific interest related to the pre-slaughter stunning. During hunting of terrestrial wildlife, the moment of death is usually regarded as the moment the animal falls and does not move. Based on the data presented in the present paper, it is concluded that when death in whales is solely determined on the basis of the IWC criteria, which in practice are based on immobility, a significant proportion of animals will be recorded as being sensible and alive when they are actually unconscious and the time to death (TTD) will be overestimated. If the criteria are used in conjunction with a postmortem examination, the recorded TTD will be closer to the real TTD and can be used for comparison of methods and performance.