A humpback prepares to dive (Photo courtesy of Noaa)
One of the world's best-known conservation groups, WWF, says limited whaling may be the only way to prevent a free-for-all.
WWF continues to believe that there should be no whaling at all.
But that policy is failing, it says, and so governments must think again.
Gordon Shepherd, director of the international policy unit at WWF's global HQ in Switzerland, explained the group's thinking in an interview with BBC News Online.
He was speaking on the last day of the annual meeting in London of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Mr Shepherd said: "As a conservationist, I say: 'Don't whale'. But that's not working.
Predictable voting
"If the IWC can't stop whaling, it has to control it. But it's not controlling it - the IWC is completely insane, almost dysfunctional.
"There is no willingness by either whalers or conservationists to understand each other. It's totally polarised - you can predict almost every vote before it's cast.
"This year the commission missed a chance to write into its schedule - effectively its constitution - a highly precautionary management system which would have set all catch quotas at zero while retaining the moratorium on commercial whaling enforced in 1985.
"It would have been a safety net for any whaling that may happen in the future.
"If it misses that chance again next year, there is a very real possibility the IWC will be over-ruled at the conference of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
"Cites has been asked time and again by Japan and Norway, the two whaling nations, to move the minke whale off Appendix I, which bans all trade, onto Appendix II, which permits controlled trade.
"Without a proper management regime in place at the IWC, Cites may downlist the minkes at its 2002 meeting.
"That would mean a free-for-all, with non-IWC members launching a completely uncontrolled hunt on the minkes to supply the Japanese market.
Preventing slaughter
"IWC members themselves would still be bound by the moratorium, unless they had objected to it in 1985.
Asked if the logic of his position meant a few whales might have to die under IWC auspices to prevent a far larger, uncontrolled slaughter, Mr Shepherd agreed.
"The real answer is no whaling", he said. "But maybe we need a slightly more sophisticated answer.
"The message 'Just say no' hasn't worked with drugs, and it isn't working with whales."
Mr Shepherd's frustration with the IWC is shared by many others who attended the meeting.
One observer of the commission for many years told BBC News Online the IWC was "rotten from the core outwards".
Living in an anti-whaling European country, he spoke anonymously.
Cetacean votecatchers
He said: "The IWC ditched any attempt at science years ago, although it annually brings together the world's largest working group of cetacean scientists. It's just more blatant about it now.
"It can't go on like this. I think Norway can't take much more, it's getting near the brink, and perhaps others too.
"Countries like the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand ought to know better.
"But whales are electorally popular, and that's what decides policy here, not science."