Japan to double whale kill

[Guest guest]

http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/temp/0227-116.html

 

WWF: Japan To Double Its Whale Hunt, Take New Species

U.S. Newswire

27 Feb 11:36

WWF: Japan To Double Its Whale Hunt, Take New Species; WWF Condemns

Scientifically Unsupportable Killing Of Endangered Sei, Minke Whales

National Desk, Environment Reporter

Contact: Jan Vertefeuille of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),

202-861-8362; e-mail: janv

 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Thumbing its nose at the

International Whaling Commission and world opinion, Japan is

expected to announce plans soon to double its unsanctioned whale

hunt in the North Pacific and to add a new endangered species to

its take, World Wildlife Fund has learned.

 

Just two months before the IWC meets to vote on continuing a

worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling, Japan will announce a

50 percent increase in its self-set annual quota of 100 minke

whales, WWF has learned. And Japanese whalers will begin killing

50 sei whales as well, an endangered species about which scientists

know very little.

 

Japan has held an annual whale hunt since 1987 that it claims is

for scientific purposes, even as the whale meat ends up in upscale

Tokyo markets. Last year, new details emerged of Japan's efforts to

overturn the IWC's commercial whaling moratorium by buying votes:

generous payments of foreign aid are used to persuade small

countries to join the IWC and vote with Japan to lift the

moratorium. The annual IWC meeting is being hosted by Japan this

year and will be held in the whaling village of Shimonoseki in late

May.

 

" The Japanese government isn't bothering to wait to see if its

efforts to stack the IWC are successful, " said WWF Vice President

Richard Mott. " Instead, it plans to double its lethal hunt without

any scientific assurance that the North Pacific whale populations

can survive the increased take. Such actions are politically

divisive and an affront to sound science. "

 

As few as 8,000 sei ( " say " ) whales may be left in the North

Pacific, but the endangered animals are easily confused in the

water with Bryde's whales and so are difficult to count or study.

Little is known of their life histories, social organization, or

even whether they migrate. Sei whales were severely depleted by

whaling before the moratorium went into effect, with more than

100,000 killed in the 1960s in the Southern Hemisphere and an

unknown number taken in the North.

 

Although minke whales as a species are not endangered, one

population in the North Pacific where the Japanese hunt is. The

Japanese government is expected to allocate the new quota of minke

whales to small-scale whaling villages, giving further lie to

claims that the annual hunts are scientific in nature.

 

" The Japanese government is attempting to prop up its whaling

industry while it sets about dismantling the global moratorium, "

Mott said. " But commercial whaling has historically proven

impossible to police and should not now be resumed under the

cynical guise of science. "

============

 

 

 

 

 

_______________