Japan has exempted itself from the International Ban on commercial whaling–or at least they’ve found a way around it. They’ve concocted a kind of “research deal” where they send scientists out to study the mating, feeding and populations of whales and then spear a few to pay for their trip. It’s a kind of underhanded attept to keep whale meat on the market although the equivalent of Japan’s Fish and Game says the suggestion is crazy. Either way, they’re setting sail on Antarctica where they plan to kill 850 minke and 10 fin whales to pay for this “voyage of discovery”.
And the world’s biggest seafood consumers will be packed and jostling at the port on this end, clattering empty tuna cans scrubbed and ready to be packed full of chunky whale goodness. Or, as I like to think of them, the “elephants of the sea”.
Hi
As for Japan’s goals, the current 850 whales is nothing. Back in the commercial whaling days more than 5,000 minke whales were killed in the Antarctic each year, and scientists seemed to think it was sustainable at that level, but needed better scientific evidence to be sure. What the government is hoping is that with the improved understanding of biological features of the whale stocks in the Antarctic, they’ll be able to get scientific justification for these larger scale commercial hunts (there is nothing to stop Japan setting itself a quota of 5,000 each year if it wants to).
Japan’s researchers have been having success with this too: the IWC’s Scientific Committee recognised that the results obtained at the halfway point of the original JARPA programme “had the potential to improve” the IWC’s “revised management procedure” (a scientific procedure for setting sustainable catch limits for baleen whales). The committee also noted that the results “might allow an increased allowed catch of minke whales in the Southern Hemisphere without increasing the depletion risk above the level indicated by the existing Implementation Simulation Trials for these minke whales.”
Of course, the idea of whales being killed in the first instance is objectionable to nations like Australia, NZ and the UK, so they have naturally tried to discredit the research.
Yikes!! Well, what makes me really sad is the dolphin hunting in taiji!! It’s really sad… I don’t want to discuss it… just google it!!