Japanese fleet returns with
vast whale haul By Sue Fischer Tuesday, April; 18, 2006
Japan's so called 'research' voyage to Antarctica
ended 14 April with the return of the fleet to Kanazawa Port. On board, their
research subjects are already processed, shrink-wrapped and frozen into neat
blocks. The meat from 853 minke whales and ten fin whales will now be sold to
subsidise future years' research in Antarctica (where 50 humpback whales, and
40 more fin whales will be added in 2007) and the North Pacific, where Japan
'studies' 160 minkes, 50 Bryde's, 100 sei and 10 sperm whales each year.
WDCS anticipates that Japan will again have trouble selling the meat from
this hunt. Last summer, 4,800 tonnes of whale meat were stored in warehouses in
Japan, which included 20 percent of meat from the 2005 hunt which was unsold.
The addition of fin whales and almost double the number of minkes this year
will add over 1000 extra tonnes of meat, but prices continue to fall. Japan
must be hoping that the species will re-awaken consumer interest, but the signs
are not good: Bryde's meat - a new species in 2000 - has fallen to almost half
its initial value; while the price of sei meat - new in 2002 and once the most
prized species - has fallen by almost a third since it was first sold.
To shift the meat, the government is selling it at a great discount,
including to schools. More than 1.6 tons of whale meat were served as school
lunch in hundreds of schools in Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka and Nara prefectures and
in Tokyo in January 2006, almost double the amount for the whole of 2005.
WDCS is also very concerned about the methods Japan used to kill these fin
whales. Killing whales as large as fin, sei and sperm whales at sea under
difficult circumstances is fraught with problems, which is reflected in the
poor rate of instantaneous kills that Japan has reported from its Pacific hunt
of the bigger species. Of even greater concern is the fate of whales that
escape wounded and may die lingering deaths.
