Japanese whalers are wary of international opposition to their trade

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http://www.enn.com/news/2003-07-10/s_6427.asp

 

Japanese whalers are wary of international opposition

to their trade

 

10 July 2003

By Hans Greimel, Associated Press

 

WADA, Japan — Just as the sun's rays peek over the

Pacific, blood and blubber begin pouring over the

pier-side slaughterhouse floor, as rubber-booted

butchers chop up one of the summer season's first

whales.

 

Brandishing machetes like surgeons' scalpels, the

dozen men first strip the waxy skin back like a banana

peel, then carve out the coveted red meat. In 90

minutes, the 10-ton, 30-foot-long Baird's beaked whale

is diced into hundreds of brick-sized chunks.

 

This year's hunt is Japan's first since the

International Whaling Commission enraged Tokyo by

rejecting its pleas for an expanded catch. And it

highlights the mounting frustrations in a nation where

some fear whaling is more endangered than the seagoing

mammals themselves.

 

" For more than 400 years, people have been eating

whale here, " said Yoshinori Shoji, president of Gaibo

Hogei, the town's last whaling company. " But I don't

know what the future will bring. "

 

Shoji owns one of five commercial whaling boats plying

Japan's coastal waters. His company and a few others

hunt Baird's beaked and pilot whales, species not

subject to the International Whaling Commission's 1986

ban on commercial whaling.

 

Whaling in this ancient hub just southeast of Tokyo

dates to 1612. But coastal companies fear more

restrictions after last month's International Whaling

Commission meeting in Berlin. Tokyo wanted approval

for a limited coastal catch of 150 minke whales but

was rebuffed. Japanese whalers had caught 300 minkes a

year before the moratorium on commercial whaling and

argued the proposed quota was similar to those granted

aboriginal whalers in Greenland and Alaska.

 

Barred from harpooning minke for nearly two decades,

Japan's coastal whale fleet has mothballed four boats

and shed more than half its 250 whalers.

 

Wada's population has tumbled by about 25 percent to

6,000 people since the whaling heydays and now relies

on whaling-oriented tourism to bring in money — a Sea

World marine park is just up the coast.

 

Nowadays, it's mostly old-timers at the docks when a

whale comes in.

 

" Back when I was a child, boats were always bringing

in whales, " said 70-year-old Shizue Ishii, who was

among nearly 30 people shelling out $12 a pound for

the glistening red meat.

 

Wednesday's whale was the fifth this season for Wada,

which has an annual quota of 26 Baird's beaked whales.

 

Chikao Kimura, secretary of the Japan Small-Type

Whaling Association, said comparisons of Japan's

coastal whalers to North American aboriginal hunters

are limited because the " societies are different. " But

he said whaling holds equal cultural, religious, and

economic significance in both places.

 

Japanese have eaten whales for thousands of years. For

centuries, souls of hunted whales have been

memorialized at Buddhist temples. After World War II,

whale meat became a leading source of protein for

Japanese.

 

Whalers in Wada boast that nothing is wasted.

 

" Every bit of the whale is utilized: the meat, the

bones, the blubber, the stomach, " Shoji said. " Even

the blood is used in fertilizer. "

 

For the last 15 years, Japan has sought a special

quota to hunt coastal minke whales, and each time it

has been denied. After the Berlin meeting, Japan

threatened to withhold Whaling Commission membership

dues, boycott commission committees, and form another

whaling body. Many Japanese want to pull out of the

commission.

 

" It's getting more and more illogical for us to stay

in, " Shoji said. " We should be coming to the end of

the road. "

 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, however, has pledged

to work for change from within the Whaling Commission

— at least for now.

 

Whalers like Shoji worry the commission will expand

its purview to all whales, and cite the commission's

attitude toward Japan's scientific whaling program.

The country is allowed a separate haul of whales from

the North Pacific and waters around Antarctica for

research purposes into migratory and mating patterns

to gauge the feasibility of future commercial hunts.

Critics call the program commercial whaling in

disguise because the meat is eventually sold for food.

 

In Berlin, the Whaling Commission passed two

resolutions urging Japan to abandon the scientific

hunts, saying they are " assuming the characteristics

of commercial whaling. "

 

" The resolutions are not legally binding, but it sets

a new course and atmosphere, " Kimura said. " It could

all be quite detrimental. "

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

 

 

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