Whaling commission votes down Japanese plan for more kills

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Whaling commission votes down Japanese plan for more

kills

 

Wednesday, June 22, 2005; Posted: 2:25 p.m. EDT (18:25

GMT)

 

Source >

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/06/22/whaling.meet.ap/index.html

 

 

ULSAN, South Korea (AP) -- The International Whaling

Commission urged Japan on Wednesday to drop plans to

more than double the number of whales it hunts yearly

for scientific research, saying the Japanese do not

need to kill whales to study them.

 

Anti-whaling nations at IWC's annual meeting took

issue with Japan's announcement earlier this week that

it would boost its annual take of minke whales from

440 to as many as 935 next year and kill as many as 50

humpback and fin whales each after a two-year

feasibility study.

 

The nations voted 30-27 for an Australian resolution

that said Japan's plan should be withdrawn unless the

new research can be conducted without killing the

whales. The resolution also called for a review of the

results of the current research program.

 

Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them,

including their stomach contents to glean details of

their diets. It then sells the meat, which is allowed

under commission rules.

 

Critics call it commercial whaling in disguise.

 

The United States has criticized the program, arguing

that scientific advances allow researchers to

adequately study whales while they are still alive.

That view was echoed by the World Wide Fund for

Nature.

 

" It's not good science, " Sue Lieberman, director of

WWF's global species program, said after the vote.

 

Japan's chief whaling negotiator, Joji Morishita, was

upbeat, telling reporters that his delegation was glad

to see that 26 other nations supported Japan.

 

" We are sure that we have a simple majority in the

organization, " he said, adding that some small IWC

member nations that could not afford to attend the

meeting also would have supported Tokyo's position.

 

Australia's motion came a day after the commission

resoundingly rejected a proposal to end the nearly

two-decade ban on commercial whaling, dealing another

blow to Japan, Norway and other pro-whaling nations

that say stocks of some species have recovered enough

to allow limited hunts.

 

The IWC banned commercial hunts in 1986 because

species were near extinction after centuries of

whaling. Norway holds the world's only commercial

whaling season in defiance of the ban.

 

Japan and other pro-whaling nations knew they had

virtually no chance of garnering the three-quarters

majority needed to overturn the moratorium at this

year's gathering, which runs through Friday in the

South Korean port city of Ulsan.

 

Still, they were hoping for a simple majority in

support of the proposal, which would have indicated

that opinion among commission members had turned in

favor of supporting commercial whale hunts.

 

Also Wednesday, the commission rejected a Japanese

motion to abolish the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary

by a 30-25 vote with two abstentions. That vote also

required a three-quarters majority to pass.

 

Japan maintains that whaling is a national tradition

and a vital part of its food culture.

 

Conservation groups, including Greenpeace, and

countries led by Australia and New Zealand are

promoting alternative ways of profiting from whales,

such as through tourism and whale-watching.

 

Japan will probably make another try at next year's

meeting in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts & Nevis,

which has consistently supported Japanese initiatives,

Morishita said.