Allen worked on the
International Whaling Commission's panel termed
The Committee of Three that found new methods to calculate whaling quotas. The group analysed whaling data (catches, the number of whaling boats etc.) to come up with proposals for annual quotas for whales. The panel's report, in 1961, was the international whaling commission's first attempt to come up with quotas that would permit whaling while allowing the whale population to increase. The three scientists on the panel (Allen,
Douglas G. Chapman and
Sidney Holt) were selected because they specialised in fisheries research but were not officially connected with
Norway,
the Soviet Union, the
Netherlands,
Japan or
Britain, the countries conducting the whaling they were to study. The quotas recommended were so much lower than usual that the whaling countries argued over them for many years but eventually they had to lower the quotas. However the whaling countries first adopted interim, compromise quotas which were higher than recommended. ==References==