Japan increases whaling as demand for whale meat falls

Jun 15, 2006, 5:17 GMT

This framegrab supplied by Draft FCB Sydney on Tuesday 13 June, is taken from a new video which Animal rights activists claim provide evidence that a whale hit with an explosive-tipped harpoon takes two-and-a-half minutes to die. The World Society for Protection of Animals (WSPA) and Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) say that the video footage proves that there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea. The groups said they had filmed the Norwegian whaling ship, Brandsholmboen, firing the harpoon into a minke whale off the coast of Norway last month. EPA/DRAFT FCB SYDNEY HANDOUT

Tokyo - The photograph projected onto the screen shows dark- red whale meat in plastic packaging, with a sticker offering a '20- per-cent discount.'

Whaling critic Junko Sakuma is using it to illustrate what conservationists have long known. Japanese consumers are no longer particularly interested in meat from these great mammals of the sea.

Stocks of unsold whale meat are on the rise, and prices have fallen accordingly, according to Sakuma, who works for the Dolphin and Whale Action Network.

Her work is in direct opposition to the Japanese government, which tries to suggest that eating whale-meat is a longstanding Japanese tradition.

The government for its part is not only proceeding with whaling for its so-called 'research programme,' but has even doubled the quota for catching minke whale.

But Japan can apparently not process all the whales it catches. During the hunt this spring the whalers were throwing away parts, such as the inner organs, by sharp contrast with years past, according to Sakuma.

The Japanese government argues that whales should be used as food as long as they are not threatened by extinction, just like other animals.

Hideki Moronuki, whaling spokesman at the Fisheries Ministry, says that it is not possible at present - in the light of the entrenched positions within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) - to discuss a controlled management system for whale stocks.

He calls for the IWC to be 'normalized.' Should the proponents of whaling, with Japan at their head, secure a majority for the first time - as appears likely - then Japan will push for the abolition of the IWC's Conservation Committee.

This committee is concerned solely with preserving whale stocks, and is thus not in accordance with the convention under which the IWC was set up, because this aims at the sustainable utilization of whale stocks, according to Moronuki.

With the aim of reforming the IWC by recalling its founding goals, Japan now intends to form a new group outside the IWC of countries favourable to the resumption of whaling.

Should this 'normalization' of the IWC not be possible, Japan reserves the right to withdraw from the organization altogether.

Conservationists fear that protecting the whale will be pushed into the background if there is a change of power at the IWC.

Moronuki says this is nonsense. Japan is not interested in hunting threatened species like the blue whale, but only whales from healthy stocks.

He counters criticism that Japan has extended the hunt to include the fin whale and the humpback whale, both of which are on the list of endangered species, by citing the results of Japanese research.

This has shown - according to Moronuki - that the Indian Ocean stocks of these whales have risen noticeably.

Measuring stocks in the Antarctic requires more research - and thus more hunting for scientific purposes - he says.

Resumption of commercial whaling would not be a problem in the case of a number of species, Moronuki says, adding the longstanding Japanese argument that whales are a threat to fish stocks.

Whales and other sea creatures can be better utilized under a system of strict controls, Moronuki says.

'Our lives would be the richer,' he says, adding that the dangers of overfishing are no longer there, as there are now considerably fewer whaling nations than before.

And even in Japan the market is not as large as it used to be.

No wonder, say the critics, as whale meat is no longer significant to consumers.

The fact that the government nevertheless puts so much effort and taxpayers' money into whaling is down to the desire of government bureaucrats to keep their jobs, they say.