Asia Times article:
excerpt:
"In one breath Japan says whales are hunted for scientific research. In another it says whale killings will benefit some of Japan's small fishing communities. Japanese logic is so easily justified: the ocean beasts monopolize and deplete fish stocks to the detriment of the Japanese appetite.
Two of the three possible reasons are commercial, but it cannot justify Japanese cruelty toward whales. Japan, Norway and Iceland have killed 2,500 whales in the past 12 months. That's more than in any year since the ban came into effect. Yet the Japan Whaling Association (JWA) says it "strongly believes that [whales] should continue to be protected".
But here's the caveat: "On the other hand, there are species which are abundant enough that marine management is needed, such as the Antarctic and northwestern Pacific minke whales and northwestern Pacific Bryde's whales."
Somehow this is justification enough, morally and ethically, for Japan to continue killing whales.
Here's more evidence the scientific research behind Japan's whaling operations is horrendously bogus. Japanese consumer demand for whale meat has been plummeting to the point there is now an oversupply, so much so that Japanese schoolchildren are being urged to eat whale meat for lunch. Even the elderly are being encouraged. But the marketing campaigns have failed - dismally.
Consequently, whale-meat prices have dropped. Richer Japanese are buying other meat products, such as imported beef. The JWA hopes poorer Japanese will step in to buy the cheaper whale meat. And still there's abundant whale meat left over. That is processed, piled into cans and sold as cat and dog food.
For this Japan insists it needs a whale scientific research body, and for that, it needs to kill whales. Now, here's an idea for Tokyo: set up a scientific research institute for Japanese baloney."
2 comments:
> "In one breath Japan says whales are hunted for scientific research."
This is correct with regard to the JARPA and JARPN programmes.
One of the basic motivations of the JARPA programme in the Antarctic is to improve knowledge of the biological characteristics of whale stocks there that may in the future be harvested commercially. Without decent knowledge of biological characteristics of whale stocks, catch limits would by neccessity be more conservative (and perhaps not commercially feasible). Through improved knowledge, safer, and potentially higher catch limits may be set. The IWC Scientific Committee in 1997 reviewed the JARPA programme, and agreed that it would be unlikely that non-lethal methods would be able to obtain the same data as the JARPA programme. The IWC Scientific Committee is currently planning another review of the completed JARPA programme this year in December.
The JARPN programme is slightly different, as the whale stocks sampled are those that occur in waters where fisheries are also active, so they are looking at interspecies interactions.
> the ocean beasts monopolize and deplete fish stocks to the detriment of the Japanese appetite.
What Japan, Norway, and Iceland, amongst others actually argue, is that it is important to understand and quantify the volume of marine resources that cetaceans eat. This is common sense from the point of view of conserving the ecosystem as a whole.
> Somehow this is justification enough, morally and ethically, for Japan to continue killing whales.
Morally and ethically, there is nothing wrong with eating whales in Iceland, Norway, Japan, and various other parts of the world. The main objectors strangely enough happen to be a small group of developed western nations.
> Japanese consumer demand for whale meat has been plummeting to the point there is now an oversupply,
Consumption in fact has been steady in recent years, and has largely kept pace with recent increases in the volume of whale meat by-products that have been put on the market. Annual supply is now around 5,000 tonnes - this is also roughly equivalent to the size of the "stockpile" when it peaked with the return of the JARPA II fleet earlier this year.
For comparison, before the moratorium, the stockpile stood at more than 20,000 tonnes, and a few decades before that whale meat consumption in Japan peaked at 220,000 tonnes in a single year.
The problem at the moment is that supply is increasing, while traditional supply chains were destroyed by the moratorium. The Institute of Cetacean Research is not a marketing body, it's a research group, so recent increases in supply have to be marketed by someone.
A new company was set up just a few months ago by an entrepreneur looking to fill the gap this gap.
> But the marketing campaigns have failed - dismally.
I wonder what this statement in particular refers to.
> Consequently, whale-meat prices have dropped.
When supply increases, demand does drop. Whale meat remains however to be more expensive than typical consumers are prepared to pay for a meal, despite the drop.
> That is processed, piled into cans and sold as cat and dog food.
The bits of whale that find their way in to pet food tins are parts like the small intestines, which humans do not consume. Processing such parts into pet food is standard for other animals.
> When supply increases, demand does drop
Ooops : when supply increases, prices do drop.
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