Illegal Whaling - Japan

The UK is strongly opposed to commercial whaling and will continue to fight for the protection and welfare of these majestic animals - Michael Gove, DEFRA.

 

Restoration of the Whaling Issue

The latest whaling debate was sparked by Japan who announced just before Christmas 2018 that it will be leaving the IWC to commence commercial whaling from July 2019 within its own territorial waters, an area of roughly 4.5 million square kilometers.

 

As an international organisation based upon voluntary membership, the IWC has no authority to compel adherence to its policies or regulations by non-member states. Accordingly, by leaving the IWC, any international obstacles toward the establishment of an openly commercial whaling operation within Japan’s exclusive economic zone is avoided.

 

Japan's covert attempt to bury the release of bad news under cover of a national holiday failed. Such news was bound to emerge with a response of global outrage, re-fueling the whaling issue and anti-whaling groups.

The UK will continue to fight for the protection and welfare of these majestic animals

On hearing the news, Michael Gove, the UK's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary took to Twitter and condemned Japan for restarting commercial whaling. He added: "The UK is strongly opposed to commercial whaling and will continue to fight for the protection and welfare of these majestic animals".

 

We should be outright furious at Japan's plan to start whaling again - Boris Johnson

Japan's continuation of an industrial scale mass slaughter of whales is devastating news where up to 90% of some populations have already been wiped out. Japan in not alone, other respected nations, including Iceland and Norway have a shameful whaling industry that has no place in the 21st Century. Whaling is needless, inhumane, anti-environmental and compromises remaining whale and fish stocks and ocean ecosystems.

 

Japan will stop at nothing to continue whaling, including:

• Defying world opinion and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) whaling ban since 1986.
• Japan, as well as Iceland and Norway, disregard the ecological roles of whales and their significant contributions to the environment and man. as recognised by the International Whaling Commission in 2016.
• Defying Japan’s own Buddhist tradition, which teaches compassion for all sentient beings.
• Offering bribes and prostitutes to IWC officials to vote in Japan's favour.
• Using relief aid funds from the 2011 tsunami & earthquake to support whaling costs.
• Using taxpayer subsidies to support whaling costs.
• 'Scientific research' whaling has cost the government $400 million in subsidies since 1988.
• Under scientific research, japan killed over 14,000 whales to produce just two scientific papers.
• Encouraging and serving Japanese school children with toxic whale and dolphin meat.
• Using regulation loophole to continue commercial whaling under the name of 'scientific research'.
• Carrying out research whaling expeditions with Automatic Identification System (AIS) safety system blacked out. Switching off the AIS avoids detection and increases the risk of ship collision.
• Failing to demonstrate a need for killing whales to expert panel of advisors to IWC scientific committee.
• Selling 'scientific research' meat to support whaling costs.
• Firing grenade harpoon toward people protecting a whale.
• Illegally killing more than 50 Minke whales in Antarctic protected area.
• Trading in endangered whale products.
• Killing over 1,500 endangered sei whales over 16 years in violation of international law.
• Rejecting international law on whaling.
• Illegal whaling under a different flag.
• Falsifying whale hunting data.

 

The following provides some important insights behind Japan's whaling obsession:

 

Commercial whaling under the banner of 'Scientific Research'

Making clear the UK’s opposition, Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said: "Japan’s slaughter of whales, supposedly in the name of science is cruel and scientifically unnecessary. We urge Japan to stop this needless killing.  It undermines international efforts to conserve and protect whales and goes against the spirit of the International Whaling Commission’s moratorium on commercial whaling. There is absolutely no justification for continued whaling and we will continue to oppose whaling at every possible opportunity."

 

Since 1988, Japans 'scientific research' whaling has cost the government $400 million in taxpayer subsidies.

 

In 2014, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Tokyo to cease its whaling activities since they did not meet any conventional scientific standards. As a result, the 2014-15 hunt was cancelled, only to re-emerge a year later under the guise of another scientific research programme.

 

Non-lethal data-gathering techniques promoted by whale researchers include underwater acoustic methods, biopsy darts, aerial surveys, satellite tagging and drones.

 

There is no demand for whale meat in Japan

Why do the Japanese continue to hunt whales if there's no demand for whale meat?

Money and power is one reason. Whaling in Japan is controlled by a cosy triad, known as the ‘Whaling Iron Triangle’ comprising:

• Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
• The Institute of Cetacean Research
• The Japan Fisheries Association

 

Japan's whaling industry has been loss-making for over 33 years and depends on taxpayer subsidies and funds diverted from relief aid.  The money is used to keep the industry afloat and to provide 'financial aid' and bribes to induce countries to support Japan's whaling policy. The government subsidies are received by the non-profit Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), set up to run Japan's whaling programme. The ICR also receives income from the sale of 'scientific research' whale meat.

 

A year after it was set-up in 1987, the ICR started to receive subsidies. Between 1988-2010, taxpayer subsidies amounted to US$150 million. Since then, the average annual subsidy increased to US$9.78 million. Then, In 2014, the government subsidy was US$50 million.

 

The Institute of Cetacean Research not only runs Japan’s whaling program, it also owns Japan’s whaling fleet, hires its mariners, and distributes and stores whale meat. According to 'The Diplomat', It is also where many retired officials from Japan’s fisheries agency and other bureaus go after retirement, forming an extended iron rice bowl system of lucrative sinecures that helps ensure Japanese whaling survives. More insights from a Japanese perspective may be found from this BBC News report.

 

Personal bribes, cash payments and prostitutes

On 13 June 2010 London’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that its investigation had exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales. "Such backroom stitch-ups at the IWC have often been rumoured, but they have never before been captured on a video camera". The lobbyist was, in fact, an undercover reporter from the Sunday Times," as reported in the archive news of GreenEcoPeace

 

The representatives of six countries were contacted, and the paper caught on hidden video high government officials of various countries making comments, such as “we switched to supporting whaling since we want official development assistance from Japan” and “we received money from Japan to cover our delegation’s transportation and hotel expenses.”

 

The payments were made in cash handed over in brown envelopes at the beginning of the meeting. Some of those interviewed even described call girls being made available to them during official visits to Japan.  Japan’s largesse also extended to paying for the hotel room and flight of the supposedly neutral IWC Chair, Anthony Liverpool of Antigua and Barbuda.

 

In terms of the whales themselves, The Sunday Times editorialised that, “The fate of these remarkable creatures should not be decided by brown envelopes and prostitutes.”

 

In June 2010, the BBC reported that Japan used aid money to persuade developing countries to support its whaling.

 

Interestingly, Mali, Laos and Mongolia are members of the International Whaling Commission who also vote for Japan yet they are entirely surrounded by land and have no tradition of whaling.

 

Using tsunami relief funds to kill whales

On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake shook north eastern Japan, unleashing a savage tsunami. The tsunami caused a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which resulted in a level-7 nuclear meltdown and release of radioactive materials. The total number of deaths caused by the tsunami was 19,575 as of 2017 September.

The cockroaches are killing all the fish

From July 2019, Japan will withdraw its commercial whaling operations to around its own territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. Cutting through all the unconvincing justification propaganda behind this move, the most likely reason is that Japan feels convinced that whales, referred to as cockroaches, are responsible for the decline in fish stocks and that gluttonous whales are threatening fish stocks. This argument is also made by Norway and Iceland and is misleadingly used to increase support for whaling.

 

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration US Department of Commerce reports that "In truth, humans are primarily responsible for fisheries declines. It is humans who continue to threaten the world's stocks through overfishing and reluctance to allow stocks to naturally replenish".

 

There is no qualified scientific evidence that cetations (whales, dolphins and porpoise) have harmed commercial fisheries. There is an increasing body of evidence that more whales equal more fish. Although some whales do eat fish, they give back to the ecosystem more than they take enabling fish to thrive and multiply. On the other hand, man has taken fish and given nothing back except degradation of the marine environment.

 

Killing whales will not increase fish populations. Whales are not the top ocean predator, Man is responsible for overexploiting 75% of all commercial fish stocks. By killing whales around its own exclusive economic zone, Japan will further deplete its remaining fish stocks by destroying the vital ecosystem functions provided by whales.

 

Japan's overfishing problem started in the 1800's but only became noticeable around the mid 1900’s. Japan is the largest fish-eating nation in the world consuming 10% of the world catch. Fish catches were the third in the world in 2000. The overfishing problem is becoming serious causing depleted catches and some species to be fished out.

 

Global warming and accompanying rising sea temperatures are also impacting Japans coastal ecosystem. The Japanese environment ministry has said that 70% of the Sekisei lagoon in Okinawa had been killed by a phenomenon known as bleaching.

 

The best solution to the problem includes: rebuilding overexploited stocks by relieving fishing pressure, improving catch selectivity of fishing gear and fishing exploitation patterns, protecting habitats, creating generous marine protected areas and no-take zones, addressing subsidised industrial scale fleets at WTO level, address destruction of habitat and sea bed scouring caused by trawl fisheries, encouraging cultural shift in fish-eating patterns, where possible, stricter monitoring, control and enforcement of illegal fising activities, practices and endangered fish-take, encouraging and supporting fishermen to take up alternative occupations e.g. profitable whale tourism.

 

 

The 'whales-eat-all-the-fish' argument

This seemingly logical statement is fast becoming a myth in the light of modern scientific research. The argument may be easier to blindly accept than understand the important role of whales in the ecosystem in replenishing fish stocks. Therefore, the 'whales-eat-all-the-fish' argument is cultivated by the whaling nations to justify the killing of whales for whatever reason or agenda. It also distracts from the root cause of the problem - overfishing and fisheries mismanagement. Bearing in mind that Japan consumes 1 in 10 of the world's fish catch.

 

 

The Japan Institute of Cetacean Research recently published a paper to reinforce the 'whales-eat-all-the-fish' argument to justify their continuation of commercial whaling. The paper was received by Greenpeace Research Laboratories, University of Exeter, UK as A Modern Myth Based on Pseudo-Science.

 

A fact not often considered is that when whales were plentiful, so too were fish, Modern scientific research is increasingly showing us the vital role whales play in maintaining the health of the oceans, supporting fish populations, generating oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Without whales, ocean life as we know it would not exist and fishing industries would totally collapse.

 

The legacy of sea dumped munitions around Japan

Fish stock security around the coastal waters of Japan are increasingly threatend by the past dumping of conventional and chemical munitions.

 

According to US veterans, tones of chemical weapons were dumped of Okinawa in 1969. Following World War II, The United States dumped 6,600 tons of the Imperial Japanese Army’s stocks of munitions — including mustard agent and hydrogen cyanide, a potent asphyxiant. According to records held by the Ministry of the Environment in Tokyo, disposal was at more than 20 sites off Tokyo and Ibaraki and Hiroshima prefectures. Two of the substances thought to have been dumped off Okinawa are the nerve agents sarin and VX, which are believed to persist for long periods in ocean waters. A 2009 report by the Monterey institute suggested that lewisite - another of the substances stored on Okinawa and possibly dumped off its coast - can contaminate marine life for decades.

 

In Okinawa during the late 1960s, there were a series of incidents which sparked residents’ fears of chemical-weapons leaks. Those included a spate of mass fish deaths and about 200 children becoming sick after they had been swimming in the sea near Ten Gan Pier.

 

A chronology of chemical weapons disposal at Okinawa is provided under Operation Red Hat.

 

According to the Monterey institute’s 2010 report, “The risks may be higher today than when the dangers of the dumped materiel were first acknowledged because containment failure, due to corrosion, is thought to occur after 50 years.”

 

A detailed paper on the sea dumping of toxic chemical weapons around Japan's coastal waters concludes: "In light of the potential risk these chemical weapons pose both to the environment and local communities not only in Japan but also in the Pacific Ocean, further research and action is urgently needed".

 

Known details of the conventional and chemical munitions dump sites around Japan, and the rest of the world, is reported in our environmental page.