Japan fights to resume commercial whaling

[Guest guest]

'You eat cows and pigs, so why can't we eat whales?'

Next week Japan takes on the world to lift the ban on whaling. Anthony

Browne in Osaka meets the harpoon hunters who demand the right to kill for

profit and accuse the West of double standards.

 

Anthony Browne

Sunday June 24, 2001

The Observer

 

The largest animal in the world sank into the icy abyss, a harpoon in her

heart. Iwao Isone, the gunner, watched from the prow of the whaling boat

rolling in the Antarctic swell as the 28-metre blue whale descended, taking

with it all the rope he had.

 

Unlike many other whales, the blue sinks when it dies and its immense weight

tested the rope until Isone thought it would break. 'The rope went so thin

as we tried to pull it back up that I thought we were going to lose it,' he

said, recalling his proudest moment. The whale, one of the largest ever

caught, was raised and harvested for its flesh, oil and wax.

 

A gunner for 44 years, Isone has killed 3,700 whales, including 20 blues, of

which only a few thousand remain of an original population of more than

250,000. Now Isone, who advises Japanese authorities on whaling, thinks

commercial exploitation should resume as other species recover since a ban

was introduced. He and his government are confident it will.

 

Last Friday night in the Tokuya restaurant in Osaka, the Asahi beer was

washing down raw minke whale heart and stewed whale tongue. Diners chatted

noisily as top whale chefs (wearing ties embossed with whale outlines) went

about their work.

 

Particularly popular is whale sashimi - chunks of raw meat topped with a

slice of raw blubber. A woman tucking into a whale burger said she was

eating whale meat for the first time since she had left school. 'I was

nostalgic for the taste,' she said. A middle-aged man, eating whale stew,

said: 'I like whale meat. That's why I'm here. It's my favourite meat - it's

between fish and beef. It's OK to eat whale so long as it doesn't disrupt

the ecosystem.'

 

In Tokyo's Tsukiji market, the largest fish market in the world, there is

clearly more than fish for sale. As thousands of silver tuna are lined up on

the floor alongside buckets writhing with eels, Shitoshi Ito stands proudly

by his stall laden with chunks of minke meat.

 

Ito, who has been selling whale meat for 32 years, has packets of 'whale

bacon' for sale and raw, diced blubber in plastic packs. 'Before the ban, I

used to sell many types of whale meat but now I just sell minke. We sell to

supermarkets, restaurants and to bars,' he said. In shops, you can buy

products from whale ice cream, made from the blubber, to whale 'crackling',

deep-fried strips of skin.

 

The Japanese indulge their taste despite the global ban on commercial

whaling introduced as a temporary measure 15 years ago. Under a government

'scientific whaling' programme, some 500 minke are killed a year for the

market.

 

Japan is confident it will soon overturn the ban in part. It is slowly

gaining support among previously sceptical nations, and will next week put

its case at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission's

scientific committee in London.

 

The campaign is one of the best financed and most determined the world has

seen. Japanese government departments have hired Washington lobbyists and

London PR firms and launched advertising campaigns in newspapers and

scientific journals. The government is using aid to buy the support of poor

countries, cementing ties with right-wing American politicians, forging

links with right wing British think-tanks, and sounding out MPs.

 

As part of the campaign, Tokyo invited The Observer on an all-expenses-paid

trip to Japan to hear its side of the story. Japan's argument is simple: it

has no desire to hunt anything other than types of whale, such as the blue,

that can be harvested without a threat to their future. Tokyo accusesthe

West - still insisting on the ban on hunting all main species - of ignoring

science, breaking treaties, cultural imperialism, double standards and

outright racism. Commercial whaling, say the Japanese, is of no economic

significance. It is, though, part of their heritage, and a matter of

principle.

 

As he stands by the cannon of the small whaler he owns and his son captains,

Isone tells how he killed 200 fin whales and five blue in one year but is

now full of regret. He grew up in the small port of Taiji in western Japan,

from where whales have been hunted for centuries. As a young man, he joined

the British whaling fleet in the Antarctic in the darkest days of industrial

whaling. His ship competed with vessels from the US, Canada, Russia, Japan,

and Norway to kill as many whales as possible, not just to eat, but for

their oil and wax, used to lubricate machinery and make candles. Whale

numbers plunged, quotas were set and violated, and the moratorium on the

main species of great whale was introduced. The most shameful episode of

man's exploitation of nature left many species almost extinct.

 

'We called it Olympic whaling because all the countries were competing. I

regret what happened,' said Isone, who now supports the concept of

sustainable whaling. He believes Britain has no justification for standing

by the ban and thinks the West is a slave to sentiment. 'Whales aren't as

clever as extremist people say. They say it is OK to kill cows but not

whales. I couldn't bring myself to kill whales if they looked you in the

eyes like cows do.'

 

After the moratorium, most countries, including the UK, the US and Russia,

disbanded their whaling fleets. Some peoples, mainly in North America and

Russia, were allowed to carry on 'aboriginal subsistence whaling'. Norway

lodged an objection, allowing it to continue the hunt. Japan invoked the

'scientific whaling' clause, and its coastal fleet of five boats continues

to hunt species not covered by the moratorium, including the pilot whale.

 

Setsuo Izumi, who has been whaling for 37 years, caught a pilot a week ago,

and is fed up being told he is doing wrong. 'What we eat is different from

country to country,' he said. 'It's a cultural thing. In Australia they eat

kangaroo but I don't want to eat kangaroo.'

 

The moratorium stopped him hunting minke - favoured for its mild taste - but

he insists they are not under threat. 'I see more minke out at sea than I

used to and fisherman say they are eating all the fish. What right do other

countries have to tell us not to catch them in our coastal waters?'

 

Estimating whale numbers is notoriously difficult. It is impossible to tell,

from a few sightings or catches, how many lie beneath the ocean. The IWC's

scientific committee reckons there are between 510,000 and 1.1 million minke

in the southern hemisphere, with a best guess of 760,000. It guesses there

are another 150,000 in the North Atlantic, and 25,000 in the North Pacific.

The most populous great whale is the sperm, which numberstwo million.

 

As a result of the moratorium, many whale populations are growing strongly.

US scientists believe the number of humpback whales in the North Atlantic

has doubled since the 1980s to 10,000, with the population growing at 7 per

cent a year.

 

The number of grey whales is thought to have been growing at 3 per cent a

year, to 26,000 in the eastern North Pacific, thought to be the natural

limit of the population. In 1994, the US removed the grey whale from its

endangered species list.

 

Japan insists some whales are so abundant it can take a limited number each

year. Joji Morishita, deputy director of the far-seas fisheries at the

Japanese Fisheries Agency, said: 'We are not talking about taking any whales

that are close to extinction, but minke whales. There are more minkes than

ever, and they say we cannot take one.'

 

For the past 10 years, the IWC's scientific committee has honed a complex

quota system to work out the number of whales that can safely be hunted.

Using conservative estimates, it reckons that Japan could take up to 2,000

minke a year.

 

Yet the 40 members of the IWC have repeatedly rejected their scientists'

advice. Eight years ago, Dr Philip Hammond of the British Antarctic Survey

resigned as chairman of the scientific committee, saying the reasons for

rejecting the quota system were nothing to do with science. 'What is the

point of having a scientific committee if its recommendations are treated

with such contempt?' he wrote in his resignation letter.

 

With public opinion so opposed to commercial whaling, it is inconceivable

the British or other governments will vote for its resumption.

 

Greenpeace argues that even a limited resumption would unleash forces

leading to a return to wholesale and uncontrolled exploitation.

 

In response, Japan and Norway have proposed a complex monitoring process.

Each whaling boat would have an independent observer on board, to take a DNA

sample from each whale caught. Taking DNA samples from shops and markets

would quickly detect any illegal whaling.

 

Demand for whales is also a lot less now than it was during the era of

commercial whaling. Whales were then hunted primarily for their oil but now

their only commercial value is as food. 'The Japanese and Norwegians cannot

eat all the whales in the ocean,' said Morishita.

 

In the face of the Japanese arguments, a former US whaling commissioner said

that because they can no longer object on conservation grounds, they will

object on ethical grounds. And that's what really angers the Japanese.

 

In the West, whales are regarded as intelligent, beautiful, almost mystical

animals, that live in harmony as they migrate from ocean to ocean. They have

complex social interactions and communicate across hundreds of miles with

haunting sounds that are sold on CD. To the Japanese, whales are food.

 

Morishita rejects the animal welfare arguments. He claims harpoon technology

has advanced dramatically since the days when whales flailed in agony for

hours as they bled to death. Norway and Japan now only use grenade harpoons

that explode in the base of the neck, killing by a shock to the brain. The

Japanese say 40 per cent are killed instantly, and the average time to death

is 2 minutes 30 seconds. 'The West is suffering from double standards.

Wildlife is for them to see and admire, and you should only eat animals such

as cows and pigs that are reared. But Australia kills three to four million

kangaroos a year, and in the US they catch 5.6 million wild deer,' said

Morishita.

 

He asks how Britons would react if Hindus tried to ban the eating of the

cows they consider holy. 'The West are trying to force their values on us.

It is cultural imperialism.'

 

Western nations have in turn been angered by Japan's 'scientific whaling',

widely seen as commercial whaling in disguise. Japan kills around 500 whales

a year, a few tests are done to assess age and diet, and then the meat is

sold. There is nothing illegal about this: the clause in the moratorium

which permits scientific whaling says any caught can be sold to defray the

cost of research. But it is the scale of it which has upset

conservationists. The Japanese government itself makes no money out of it,

with the cost of the 'research' being £25 million a year and the revenue

received about £20m. But there is a commercial incentive: from the factory

ships to the restaurants, it keeps the industry alive.

 

Seiji Ohsumi, director general of the Institute of Cetacean Research, who

heads the programme, dismisses the allegations. 'We are not using science as

a cover for commercial whaling. Commercial whalers would just go for areas

highly populated with whales, but we go to both highly and lightly populated

areas. Commercial whalers would just go for the biggest, but we go for all

sizes,' he said at his office overlooking Tokyo bay. 'We need to catch

hundreds to make sure the results are statistically significant.'

 

The stated aim of the research is to assess population to better understand

the ecology of whales. Environment groups insist the discoveries - such as

'whales eat fish' - are facile.

 

But Ohsumi is unabashed about the purpose of the research: 'We are doing

research in order to resume commercial whaling.' Each year, they pass the

figures to the IWC's scientific committee to enable it to better assess how

many whales could be sustainably hunted.

 

Because of their religious beliefs, the Japanese traditionally ate only

seafood - including whale - rather than land animals. After the Second World

War, General Douglas MacArthur, who led the US occupation of Japan, told

people to eat whale because it was a cheap source of protein. Whale meat

then made up 45 per cent of total meat consumption, and until the 1970s

schoolchildren were fed whale because it was cheap.

 

However, the ban has made whale so rare and expensive - it's available in

only a few shops and restaurants - it is now a tiny part of Japanese

cuisine. One survey showed that 65 per cent of Japanese people have never

eaten whale, and for most of those that had, it was only as a schoolchild.

 

Motoji Nagasawa, Greenpeace's whale campaigner in Japan, said: 'The

government has been spending a lot of money spreading misinformation that

whaling is an important national interest, and all Japanese want it. But

that is the opposite of the truth. Whale meat is sold in limited areas in

Japan. I've no idea where to buy whale meat - it's not in the supermarkets.

We now have so many other sources of food, we do not need whale meat.' For

most Japanese, whaling is not a significant issue. A Mori poll for

Greenpeace showed that 10 per cent of Japanese supported commercial whaling,

14 per cent were opposed and the rest had no opinion. 'Most Japanese don't

have an interest in commercial whaling or whale meat,' said Nagasawa.

 

Whaling is also economically insignificant. There are only four traditional

whaling villages, with five boats between them. The ban on commercial

whaling led to a loss of just 450 jobs, and the current total market is

2,000 tonnes of minke whale meat a year, with a retail value of just £70m.

 

But if whaling is a vested interest of only a handful of people, if there is

a marginal whale-eating culture, if the industry has no economic

significance and its public doesn't really care, why does the Japanese

government think it worth provoking an international row?

 

The answer, says Mor ishita, is principle. 'It raises very important

principles about the sustainable use of resources, and the role of

international law,' he said.

 

The treaty establishing the IWC is explicitly aimed at ensuring a

sustainable whaling industry, not banning it outright, and Japan contends

that what Western nations are doing is illegal. It is particularly angry

about the IWC setting up sanctuaries in the Antarctic and Indian oceans,

which ban the killing of whales in perpetuity, irrespective of any 'issues

about conservation'.

 

To the Japanese, it confirms that rather than being true to international

law, the IWC has become a science-free zone of eco-posturing, and they are

concerned about the precedent this sets for other agreements.

 

Morishita said: 'International law has to be based on science, which is the

bridge between different cultures. It can't be based on one group trying to

impose their values on another.'

 

 

How the giants have vanished

 

 

Minke whales: 760,000 in southern hemisphere, and 175,000 in northern

hemisphere. Level thought to be the same as before whaling began, possibly

higher. Status: low risk

 

Sperm whales: 2 million. Status: vulnerable

 

Grey whales: 26,300, with population growing at 3 per cent per year. Status:

low risk

 

Bowhead whales: 7,500 with population growing at 2.3 per cent per year.

Status: low risk

 

Humpback whales: more than 100,000 killed in first half of last century. Now

number 15,000 with population growing 10 per cent per year. Status:

vulnerable

 

Fin whales: 120,000. Status: endangered

 

Blue whales: In 1900, there were 250,000 blue whales. There are now

6,000-14,000 around the world. Status: endangered

 

Southern right whales: 3,000-5,000. Status: low risk

 

Source: International Whaling Commission, IUCN

 

 

Whaling through history

 

 

Ninth century: Hunting of right whales starts with the Basques in France and

Spain and also with hunters in Norway.

 

Twelfth century: Whaling starts in Japan.

 

Thirteenth century: Laws passed in Iceland regulating whaling.

 

Seventeenth century: Commercial whaling established in the Arctic by British

and Dutch operating from Spitsbergen.

 

1712:American whalers start hunting the sperm whale - the species later made

famous by the novel Moby Dick.

 

c1860: Norwegians develop the explosive-tipped harpoon.

 

c1870: First factory ships introduced for processing whale carcasses at sea.

 

1904: Japan starts deep-sea whaling in Antarctic.

 

1930: Whaling reaches a peak, employing thousands of people around the

world. Over the next decade, more than 300,000 blue whales slaughtered.

 

1935: Right whale is officially protected, after more than 100,000 killed.

 

1946: International Whaling Commission established to control whale

industry, and grey whale is officially protected.

 

1966: Commercial hunting of humpbacks and blue whales banned.

 

1972: Anti-whaling campaign, led by Greenpeace, gains momentum. Through

high-profile opposition, the organisation persuades many previously neutral

countries to join the IWC and to lobby for a ban.

 

1982: IWC votes for moratorium on commercial hunting of all great whales.

This was to come into effect in 1986. But Japan continues 'scientific

whaling' and Norway continues whaling in coastal waters.

 

1992: IWC scientific committee devises quota system to allow resumption of

commercial whaling. Not adopted.

 

1994: Southern Ocean Sanctuary set up prohibiting all commercial whaling in

Antarctic waters. US takes grey whale off its endangered species list.

 

2000: Japan blocks creation of South Pacific Sanctuary for whales.

 

2001: Japan and Norway propose resumption of commercial whaling with

monitoring scheme.

 

anthony.browne

 

 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001