After 30 years, Japan prepares to resume commercial whaling

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After 30 years, Japan prepares to resume commercial whaling

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Fishermen in northern Japan are set to defy international opinion by resuming hunting whales for profit. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

Fishermen in remote Pacific port plan to depart for hunt on Monday, despite global outcry

Justin McCurry in Ayukawa | Fri 28 Jun 2019 01.32 BST

On Monday morning, after a short ceremony to pray for a bountiful catch and safety at sea, five ships will slip out of a port in northern Japan to hunt whales for profit for the first time in more than 30 years.

They will not head to the southern ocean, the controversial hunting ground for Japan’s “scientific” whaling programme since the late 1980s, but to coastal waters, six months after the country announced it would leave the International Whaling Commission [IWC] on 30 June.

Its decision to leave came after the IWC, the body responsible for protecting global whale populations, voted down its proposal to resume the commercial hunting of species whose stocks Japanese officials say have recovered.

The vessels’ imminent departure from Kushiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido, to kill minke, sei and Bryde’s whales, drew condemnation as Japan and its pro-whaling prime minister, Shinzo Abe, prepared to host G20 leaders in Osaka.

In a letter published on Friday, conservation groups and celebrities including Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais urged G20 leaders to stage an “intervention” at the summit and publicly condemn commercial whaling.

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Ayukawa, a whaling village in northeast Japan. A vessel from the village will be part of Japan’s commercial whaling fleet when it leaves port on Monday (1 July) Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian

“It has taken the combined efforts of every nation on earth to bring whale conservation to the fore,” the naturalist and TV presenter Steve Backshall said. “At the G20 summit, our leaders need to talk to our friends in Japan, and let them know that – on this issue – they are deeply at odds with the rest of the world.”

Japan’s government will not reveal the hunt’s quota until after the G20, reportedly to avoid a backlash during its two days in the diplomatic spotlight.

Kitty Block, president of Humane Society International, said: “Japan leaving the IWC and defying international law to pursue its commercial whaling ambitions is renegade, retrograde and myopic, it is undermining its international reputation for an industry whose days are so clearly numbered, to produce a product for which demand has plummeted.

“The IWC is maintaining its ban on commercial whaling for very good reasons and world leaders meeting in Japan this week should not turn a blind eye to the cruel assault planned on whales of the north Pacific.”

But in Ayukawa, a remote village on the Pacific coast whose connection with whale hunting goes back to the early 1900s, local officials and fishermen believe the resumption of commercial whaling will help revive the local economy.

“People here have hunted whales for a long time, so we thought it was only natural for Japan to leave the IWC and start hunting commercially again,” said Masaaki Sato, a fisherman who started working on research whaling expeditions 20 years ago in his late teens.

One vessel and several fishermen from Ayukawa will join the fleet due to leave on Monday morning, one day after Japan quits the IWC.

Shinetsu Oikawa, a local official, believes the resumption of commercial whaling will bring tourists to Ayukawa, which was badly damaged in the March 2011 tsunami that killed almost 19,000 people along Japan’s northeast coast.

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Whale bacon (front) and deep-fried whale meat served at a restaurant in Ishinomaki, north-east Japan. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian

“Ayukawa is very remote, road access is poor and there’s no space for industry, so whaling is the best way for the town to make the most of its natural resources,” Oikawa said. “Now we want tourists to come and eat whale meat, spend money and help us truly recover from the disaster.”

In September, a large tourist centre will open in the village featuring restaurants serving whale meat. “This is a chance for the area to finally look forward,” added Oikawa, who misses the local delicacy – boiled whale offal seasoned with ginger-infused soy sauce. “It’s been 10 years since I last ate that.”

Shinji Sato, who has run an izakaya restaurant in nearby Ishinomaki for 35 years, was a relatively late convert to whale meat. “I first ate it when I was around 20, and to be honest, I didn’t like it much,” the 65-year-old said.

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A whale meat restaurant in Ayukawa soon after it was struck by the tsunami in March 2011. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian

“But as I got older and my tastes changed and I came to love the texture,” added Sato, whose restaurant serves whale meat deep-fried, as sashimi and in gyoza dumplings. “To eat whale meat is part of being Japanese, and it enables people in this region connect with their past. I don’t see why anyone should object to that.”

But in regularly eating whale meat, Sato is going against the culinary grain. Domestic consumption has plummeted from 200,000 tons in the 1960s, when it was an important source of protein, to less than 5,000 tons in recent years.

“In the past 30 years, all kinds of foods have come into Japan; there are so many things to eat,” Kazuo Yamamura, president of the Japan Whaling Association, told Reuters. “It’s no longer a situation where if you produce lots of whale meat, you’re going to make lots of money.”

Some observers have pointed out that the coastal expeditions will be much smaller than previous research hunts and would save hundreds of whales that Japan once caught in more distant waters. It could also be cheaper, as the fleet will no longer have to travel to the Antarctic.

Japan used a clause in the IWC’s 1986 moratorium to hunt a certain number of whales in the Antarctic in the name of scientific research, but grew frustrated over its repeated failure to reform the IWC to facilitate a return to commercial whaling.

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A former whaling ship in Ayukawa, Japan, June 2019. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian

Patrick Ramage, director of marine conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the “astonishing” decision to leave the IWC was a “face-saving” admission that Japan’s research expeditions had achieved nothing of scientific value, but had instead caused diplomatic friction with anti-whaling nations such as Australia.

“Based on this astonishing development and concerns recently expressed by coastal whalers regarding the dwindling market for their product, it appears what we are seeing is the beginning of the end of Japanese whaling,” Ramage said.

“Only the most convinced fisheries agency bureaucrat would suggest it is still possible to resuscitate consumer demand and commence a glorious new era of coastal commercial whaling and domestic demand for whale meat.”


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... al-whaling


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Re: After 30 years, Japan prepares to resume commercial whaling

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Ships set sail in Japan’s first commercial whale hunt in more than 30 yrs

By Reuters• 1 July 2019

KUSHIRO, Japan, July 1 (Reuters) - Five small ships sailed out of harbour on Monday in Japan's first commercial whale hunt in more than three decades, a move that has aroused global condemnation and fears for the fate of whales.

By Elaine Lies and Masashi Kato

Japan has long said few whale species are endangered, and news in December that it was leaving the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting was the culmination of years of campaigns by industry supporters and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose constituency includes a city that has long whaled.

“If we had more whale available, we’d eat it more,” said Sachiko Sakai, a 66-year-old taxi driver in Kushiro, a gritty port city on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, where the whaling ships were waved out of harbour in a brief ceremony.

“It’s part of Japan’s food culture,” said Sakai, adding that she ate a lot of whale as a child. “The world opposes killing whales, but you can say the same thing about many of the animals bred on land and killed for food.”

The ships, which are set to be joined by vessels from the southern port of Shimonoseki, will spend much of the summer hunting for minke and Baird’s beaked whales.

Crew in orange life vests took positions on the decks as the blue-hulled ships sailed out of Kushiro, some with red banners fluttering from their masts.

Japan began whaling for scientific research a year after a 1986 ban on commercial whaling, aiming to gather what it called crucial population data, but it abandoned commercial whaling in 1988.

Critics said the programme was simply commercial whaling in disguise, after the meat of animals taken in scientific whaling ended up on store shelves and in restaurants.

This year’s quota, including minkes, sei whales and Bryde’s whales, was about 220, the Nikkei newspaper said.

Environmentalists said the launch was delayed until after a summit of leaders of G20 major economies that Japan hosted, but whaling proponents have denied this.

Environmentalists worldwide urged leaders at the summit in the western city of Osaka not to ignore what they called a cruel assault on whales.

The quota set by Japan’s Fisheries Agency is to be adjusted annually, people in the industry say. As whaling will be limited to the exclusive economic zone, Japan will no longer take about 330 Antarctic minke whales a year, as it has done recently.

Whaling is a tiny industry in Japan. Whale makes up about 0.1 percent of all meat eaten in a year, with about 300 people directly linked to whaling.

Japan’s annual supplies of about 4,000 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes amount to 40 gm to 50 gm for each citizen, or about the weight of half an apple. Even whaling supporters say building demand will take time.

Patrick Ramage, head of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, called the move a face-saving solution that could eventually lead Japan to abandon whaling.

“It’s a good decision for whales, it’s a good decision for Japan, and it’s a good decision for international marine conservation,” he said. (Reporting by Elaine Lies and Masashi Kato; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) DM


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Re: After 30 years, Japan prepares to resume commercial whaling

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“It’s part of Japan’s food culture,” said Sakai, adding that she ate a lot of whale as a child. “The world opposes killing whales, but you can say the same thing about many of the animals bred on land and killed for food.”
0- Ignorance is killing the Earth 0=


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Re: After 30 years, Japan prepares to resume commercial whaling

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Whales targeted by Japan face extinction threat

2019-07-02 12:03 - AFP

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Japan has resumed commercial whaling in its waters despite global outrage.

Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction until 1986, when a group of countries agreed to temporarily stop whaling for profit.
It turned into a semi-international ban.
But Conservationists are now worried the species might be facing a similar threat.
Many countries continue to hunt whales for 'scientific' purposes.
And Japan, which is one of the leading commercial whalers - has now resumed the practice in its waters.

But is it commercially sustainable?
And why is whaling so important for Japan?


One of three species Japan has targeted in resuming commercial whaling Monday is threatened with extinction, and sub-populations of the other two are severely depleted as well, according to experts.

After pulling out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) at the end of last year, Japan announced it would allow 227 of the giant sea mammals to be harpooned within its territorial waters -- extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from its coast -- before the end of December.

The commission's 1986 moratorium on whaling forbids all whaling, though a trio of countries, including Japan, flouted the ban through loopholes while remaining within the IWC.

Japan's new self-arrogated quota -- which could be renewed or changed next year -- includes 150 Bryde's, 52 minke and 25 sei whales.

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Japan town hopes to revive its culinary culture with resumption of commercial whaling

Japan is set to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission and resume commercial whaling on July 1, sparking widespread condemnation.

One of these species, the sei, is listed at "endangered" on the International Union of the Conservation of Nature's Red List, which has assessed the conservation status of some 100,000 animals and plants.

The sei -- at 20 metres (645 feet), the biggest of whales after the blue and the fin -- was the main target of Japan's ostensibly "scientific" whaling from the early 2000s until 2017.

'Severely depleted'

The Red List classifies Bryde's and minke whales "of least concern," meaning they are not currently threatened with extinction.

But these assessments obscure a more nuanced reality that could spell trouble for sub-groups of the species as well, according to Justin Cooke, a long-standing member of the IWC's scientific committee and a member of the IUCN's Cetacean Group.

"There are two types of minke whale exploited off the coast of Japan," he told AFP.

"The one found in coastal waters -- in the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea -- is quite severely depleted due to a long history of catches by Japan and South Korea."

Besides those targeted by whalers, others die after getting caught up in netting set for fish, he explained.

Known as the "J stock", the coast-hugging minke (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) are highly unusual among baleen, or filter-feeding, whales because they breed during the summer rather than the winter.

Surveys by Japanese and South Korean fisheries agencies have estimated their numbers at about 1,500, Cooke said in an interview.

The more plentiful "O stock" minke -- which breed in summer and number about 25,000 -- are found further north in the Sea of Okhotsk, in Russian waters.

Whale watching

As with other types of whales, including orca, sub-populations of the same species can develop highly distinct behaviour patterns, which has led some biologists to describe these differences as "cultural".

There are two known sub-species of the larger Bryde's whales -- also filter feeders -- that grow up to 17 metres (55 feet) in length.

Japan stopped hunting Bryde's in 1987, but re-authorised yearly catches in international waters of 50 individuals starting in 2000, again for supposedly "scientific" research.

The North Pacific population -- found mostly in the middle range of Japan's exclusive economic zone -- was recently estimated at just over 26,000 by the IWC's scientific committee.

The other sub-species is found in Japan's southern waters and supports a local whale-watching industry. Also known as Eden's whale, they number just under 170, according to a 20-year old stocktake, Cooke said.

For the endangered Sei whale, experts disagree on how to characterise its population.

"Japanese scientists insist that there is only one (population) in the whole North Pacific," said Cooke. "But they have only collected data from the offshore area."

A competing hypothesis is that the region is home to five distinct populations, including one along the western coast that will now be hunted for its meat.

The latest estimate for this sub-group is about 400, Cook said.


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The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
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