• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.93-112
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand general perception of utilizing whale resources and preference for implementing whale watching tourism. This article examines perception of whale resources and identifies preferred types of the whale watching program in the feasibility of a whale watching tourism. And also analyzing the causal effect between perception of the whale resources and intention for participating in regarding the types of whale watching tourism. The results of this study showed that there are high interest in protecting and preserving of whale resources and low intention to resume the operation of commercial whale hunting. For utilizing of whale resources, we need to consider developing whale watching tour as ecotourism. The interest and watching for whale resources have a high level of relation with participating intention in whale tourism. Participation of whale tourism will be induced by developing new types of whale tourism to meet the interests for whale resources, This approach is hoped by authors to provide useful data for implementation of whale tour program and establishing improvement plan of whale tourism.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.145-150
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• 2019

We develop the system realization of whale sound reconstruction by inverse MFCC algorithm with the weighted L2-norm minimization techniques. The output products from this research will contribute to the whale tourism and multimedia content industry by combining whale sound contents with the prototype of 3D printing. First of all, we develop the softwares for generating whale sounds and install them into Raspberry Pi hardware and fasten them inside a 3D printed whale. The languages used in the development of this system are the C++ for whale-sounding classification, MATLAB and Python for whale-sounding playback algorithm, and Rhino 6 for 3D printing.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.42-57
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to estimate the economic values of whale watching. The data used in this study were collected with 1,599 coastal tourists and the questionnaire included contingent valuation method questions. The results show that coastal tourists obtained the benefits of about KRW 15,970 from whale watching. Further analyses were conducted to check the differences of willingness to pay for whale watching based on the three variables as follows: previous experience of whale watching and participation intention in whale watching tourism, and previous experience of cruise trips. The results indicate that the respondents, who already participated or intended to participate in this type of tourism activity, were willing to pay higher than those, who did not participated or had no intention of participation, respectively. These results imply that whale watching could be a feasible alternative to the direct consumption of whale meat. Based on the study results, we provide policy and management-related implications for whale watching programs.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.51-66
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• 2018

During the Joseon period, the East Sea would be called 'Gyeonghae' due to a large number of whales. In the Republic of Korea, whaling was locally permitted in 1946. However, the number drastically dropped because the hunting of the marine mammal had already been carried out in Russia, the U.S. and Japan since 1800s. Before a moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced by the International Whaling Commission(IWC) in 1986, whale populations in the East Sea had plunged. Furthermore, Korean gray whales and fin whales weren't found anymore in that area. With the suspension, whale hunting was banned in Korea as well. Even so, accidentally caught whales have been allowed to be distributed on the market with respect for local food culture. With the establishment of Whale Museum and hosting of the 57th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission(IWC) at Jangsaengpo in 2005, whale tourism was facilitated in earnest. This whale tourism has been operated by Nam-gu Office and Nam-gu City Management Corporation in Ulsan. However, the popularity of whale tourism has increased a demand for whale meat. At the same time, there has been concern over decrease in whale populations because of illegal whaling. In addition, a conflict between the use and protection of whales has caused confusion in tourism identity. Actually, there is a serious doubt on the sustainability of whale tourism due to the decade-long deficit and excessive investments. This study attempts to define a concept of whale tourism and propose a future direction for the sustainable growth and development of Korea's whale tourism industry after developing such comprehensive assessment indicators as a basic research for the introduction of sustainable whale tourism. To achieve the aim of this study, AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) was chosen as a main research tool and the factors were ranked by a comprehensive analysis of principal factors and detail factors. The current study showed the following results. First, ecological environment(0.430) was indicated the most important factor of whale tourism assessment indicators. Moreover, Population(0.1302), Action for Cetacean protection(0.1031), Governance(0.0898) were critical factors. On the other hand, Accommodations(0.0085), Whale meat(0.0088) were unimportant factors than others.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.147-152
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• 2018

Underwater transient signals are complex, variable and nonlinear, resulting in a difficulty in accurate modeling with reference patterns. We analyze one type of underwater transient signals, in the form of whale sounds, using the MFCC(Mel-Frequency Cepstral Constant) and synthesize them from the MFCC and the weighted $L_2$-norm minimization techniques. The whales in this experiments are Humpback whales, Right whales, Blue whales, Gray whales, Minke whales. The 20th MFCC coefficients are extracted from the original signals using the MATLAB programming and reconstructed using the weighted $L_2$-norm minimization with the inverse MFCC. Finally, we could find the optimum weighted factor, 3~4 for reconstruction of whale sounds.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.554-562
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• 2022

Humans technological advancements have resulted in the depletion of whale resources. Accordingly, the International Whaling Commission was established to preserve whale resources and ensure the orderly development of the whaling industry. After a commercial whaling moratorium came into effect, the international trade of whale meat and related products was banned. However, There is a systematic activity through illegal remodeling ships because whales incidentally caught may be distributed in Korea and have a significant economic benefit. Although suspected illegal whaling is actively cracked down, but it is still insufficient to prevent illegal whaling and distribution. To prevent this, stereoscopic crackdowns utilizing air forces and patrol ships are effective, and it is necessary to quickly separate the captured ship and crew to prevent the destruction of evidence. For the transparent distribution of whale meat, it is necessary to advance related technologies such as whale species identification and individual identification of forensic science institutions based on whale DNA database of the National Institute of Fisheries Science. Accordingly, the Korea Coast Guard Research Center is directly conducting research on related national R&D project. To increase the efficiency of identifying whale-related evidence at crime scene, a rapid test kit that responds specifically to whale bloodstrains is developing and evidence transport packs are manufacturing and distributing, while identification technologies are also being advanced.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.43-48
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• 2017

The underwater transients signals contain the characteristics of complexity, time varying, nonlinear, and short duration. So it is very hard to model for these signals with reference patterns. In this paper we separate the whole length of signals into some short duration of constant length with overlapping frame by frame. The 20th LPC(Linear Predictive Coding) coefficients are extracted from the original signals using Durbin algorithm and applied to neural network. The 65% of whole signals were learned and 35% of the signals were tested in the neural network with two hidden layers. The types of the whales for sound classification are Blue whale, Dulsae whale, Gray whale, Humpback whale, Minke whale, and Northern Right whale. Finally, we could obtain more than 83% of classification rate from the test signals.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.162-167
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• 2018

To confirm the genetic identification and phylogenetic relationships of unidentified 6 baleen whales by-caught from 2002 to 2016, a partial sequence of approximately 500 base pair (bp) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region was analyzed and compared to published sequence from Genbank. Our results indicated that the two individuals among 6 specimens are clustered with Omura's whale clade through phylogenetic analysis, which had only a single haplotype. Omura's whale was reclassified as a new species in 2003 and they had not been previously reported in Korean waters. This study firstly revealed existence of Omura's whale in Korean waters by molecular analysis based on mtDNA control region.

• Ocean policy research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.183-204
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• 2018

Whaling has been banned in Republic of Korea after the declaration of the moratorium on the commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986. Korean government followed the moratorium immediately. However whale meat market has been kept by the bycaught whales and dolphins. So Korean government established a rule to control and trace whale meat in the market in 2011. The rule has some loopholes to allow illegally taken whale meat smuggle into the market. This study investigates the flaws in the current rule and recommend the way to overcome that defects. The first step is to prevent the entry of the illegal whale meat into the market. Minor change of the current law would be a solution. The next measure is to increase the sampling rate of the whale DNA that allowed to distribute in the market. The DNA database would be a powerful tools to identify illegal whale meat which is existing in the market. Korean government is operating three kind of food traceability systems. However, because of the legal limitations and the opposition of the non-governmental animal rights organizations, it is difficult to include whale meat to the existing systems. So the last step is to establish a new Traceability System with a state-of-the-art IT technology like as blockchain. The three measures mentioned above would increase the transparency in the whale meat market and prevent the entry of the illegal products.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.533-540
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• 2020

A total length of sperm whales can be estimated by measuring the Inter-Pulse Interval(IPI) of their clicks composed by multiple pulses. The IPI is caused by the two-way travel time of the sound transmission in the spermaceti within the whale head. Therefore, the IPI can be used to measure the whale's total length based on allometric relationships between head and body length. In this paper, the click signals recorded in the East Sea, Korea in 2017 were analyzed to estimate the size of sperm whales. The size of sperm whales calculated by the relationship between IPI and body length was 9.9 m to 10.9 m, which is corresponding to the size of an adult female or a juvenile male sperm whale. This non-lethal acoustic method has been demonstrated to accurately estimate the sperm whale size, and can provide useful information for domestic sperm whale monitoring.