Japan to Double Whale Catch Tokyo Says It's for
Science, but Others Disagree
By Bennett Richardson
TOKYO – Japan announced this week at the International Whaling Commission
in the city of Ulsan, South Korea, that it will more than double
its annual whale catch for scientific purposes in what critics say
may turn the tide against decades of protecting the sea mammals.
Activists have fiercely condemned the move, and antiwhaling Australia
passed a nonbinding resolution Wednesday calling on Japan to halt
the program, which is allowed under IWC rules.
While votes on various measures at the week-long plenary have narrowly
favored the antiwhaling camp, the IWC may be on the verge of moving
away from being a conservation-minded organization back to being
the whaling regulation body it started out as in 1946. Most resolutions
have only been passed by a margin of three or four votes.
More nations from Asia, Northern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean
are now saying that the 66-member group ought to be less concerned
with protecting whales than with promoting more hands-on environmental
management as some whale species have recovered.
Weighing a minke whale onboard the Nisshin Maru Photo Courtesy Institute
of Cetacean Research
Japan points in particular to a surge in the number of minke whales.
Whale researchers here have found that minke whales have swelled
by a factor of 10 in the last 100 years to over 934,000 and are
contributing to the depletion of fish stocks around the world. Other
population estimates of the minke range between half a million to
well over a million.
This not only hurts the international fishing industry "but also
coincides with an alarming drop in numbers of other whale species,"
says Masayuki Komatsu, a director at a fisheries research agency
affiliated with the Japanese government. He points in particular
to the plight of the blue whale, which number a mere 2,000 or so
today. "If you do the math on the amount of fish that minke whales
require to survive, that leaves much less food for the blue whale,"
he says.
But he adds any increase in the minke whale catch will have to be
"handled very carefully" due to likely resulting changes in the
ecosystem.
However, other scientists dispute the dangers whales pose to commercial
fishing. Kristin Kaschner, a marine biologist at Canada's University
of British Columbia in Vancouver, found that human fishing and whale
feeding take place in completely different zones of the ocean, according
to Agence France-Presse.
Measuring the blubber thickness of a whale. Photo Courtesy Institute
of Cetacean Research
Japan plans to double its annual catch of minkes to 935 from 440
and add up to 50 larger fin and humpback whales to the list within
a few years under its new scientific research program. The program
is widely seen as a cover for a limited amount of commercial whaling
by staunchly conservationist nations such as Australia and New Zealand.
Scientists from the antiwhaling lobby refused to review Japan's
new plan in Ulsan claiming it lacked credibility, but didn't submit
any evidence refuting Tokyo's position that some whale species have
recovered, despite being invited to do so.
While the IWC voted Tuesday to keep the 1986 moratorium on commercial
whaling in place, the expansion of Japan's whale catch is a bitter
blow to antiwhaling groups who argue the practice is barbarous.
"There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea and all commercial
and scientific whaling should cease on grounds of cruelty alone,"
says Leah Garces, a cam- paign director for the London-based World
Society for the Protection of Animals.
But countries like Japan and Norway see the opposition to whaling
as stemming from a combination of poor environmental management
skills and cultural intolerance. Whaling in Japan dates back 5,000
years and has a tradition of using the entire carcass not just the
oil and blubber, according to the Japan Whaling Association. The
association recently held a symposium at Waseda University in Tokyo
to encourage young people not to abandon their culinary heritage.
At the meeting, advertised around the campus with posters reading
"It's OK to Eat Whale!" the head of the association told students
that it is important "to always respect the food cultures of different
peoples ... as well as understand scientific facts correctly."
The majority of older Japanese remember when whale was served up
in school lunches.
Whalers in resource-poor nations lost a lucrative income when the
moratorium took effect and while some hope to return to hunting
the giant sea mammals, animal rights groups have recently been encouraged
to see more fishermen in Asia and the Caribbean trade in their harpoons
for dolphin and whale watching tour boats.
As the influence of pro-whaling countries in the IWC has grown in
recent years, relations with conservationists have understandably
been strained. The antiwhaling lobby has accused Japan of enticing
nations without coastlines such as Mongolia into joining the IWC,
while Tokyo says that Australia and New Zealand pursued the same
tactic with the landlocked Czech Republic.
Source: Institute of Cetacean Research, Japan: AP
Many in the antiwhaling camp fear that whaling nations will try
to expand their influence to roll back conservation-based schemes
and lay the groundwork for resumption of commercial hunting. Overturning
the 19-year-old ban on commercial whaling would require a three-quarters
majority at next year's IWC meeting.
