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Agence France Presse    May 16, 2001

Japan hits back at whaling criticism
TOKYO--Japan on Wednesday hit back at widespread international condemnation of its "research" whaling program, accusing its critics of emotionally-based criticism and political interference.

The strident defence of Japan's continued whaling came in a statement quoting
Masayuki Komatsu, Japan's alternate commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, released by the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo Wednesday.

"Emotionally-based criticism and political interference related to Japan's whale research program may serve to satisfy certain environmental groups but such actions against a perfectly legal and scientifically sound program are inappropriate," the ICR statement quoted Komatsu as saying.

The ICR is technically a non-governmental, non-profit research group but it is authorised by and enjoys close links to the ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.

The statement was issued in response to calls for Japan to end its 14-year old research" whaling from countries including the United States and Australia, and environmental campaign group Greenpeace which slammed it as pseudo-science.

The renewed protests were prompted by the departure of Japan's whaling fleet last week for the northwest Pacific to catch to kill 100 minke, 50 Bryde's and 10 sperm whales, almost double the 88 it took last year.

Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1988 after defying for two years an International Whaling Commission's (IWC) moratorium on the practice that came into force in 1986.

But before it stopped commercial whaling, Japan in 1987 started what it called research" whaling, using a provision in the IWC moratorium that permitted hunting for research purposes.

The ICR statement was accompanied by an eight page question and answer pamphlet intended to address the most common accusations made about the whaling program.

Posing the question why Japan continues its whaling in the face of opposition from the IWC and world opinion, the document claimed "anti-whaling is not the majority world-view," without citing figures.

Attempting to head off one of Greenpeace's arguments that the whaling is simply a commercial practice in disguise, the ICR said the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling requires "the by-products of the research be processed."

"The fact that the whale meat ends up on the market is a requirement of the treaty to ensure that resources are not wasted," the ICR said.

The research topics include bilological parameters related to stock management of the minke whale in the Southern Hemisphere, studying the role of whales in the Antartic Ocean ecosystem, examining the impact of environmental changes on whales, and counting the numbers of minke whales in the southern hemisphere "to improve stock management."

"While certain information can be obtained through non-lethal means, other information requires sampling of internal organs such as ovaries, ear plugs and stomachs," the ICR said.

The document also repeated earlier claims in the fisheries ministry's white paper that the research had revealed that whales eat "a great deal" of fish including saury and cuttlefish, contributing to declining stocks of commercially fished species.

Both Greenpeace and US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher have been
scathing in dismissing the findings, arguing that overfishing, not whales,is threatening fish stocks.

Australia, which is trying to establish a sanctuary for the world's largest mammals in the southern oceans, last Friday condemned Japan's whaling as"totally unnecessary."

Australia's Environment Minister Robert Hill attacked Japan's policy ofintroducing new IWC members from nations with no tradition of whaling.

"Japan seems to be able to bring along new members to each meeting, usually
from central Africa or somewhere," he said.


November 6, 2001  (out of sequence but logically follows above)
Japanese whale hunt is on.
According to an AP article by Mari Yamaguchi, a Japanese fleet of five vessels has left Japan with the intent of killing 400 minke whales in the Antarctic, part of the southern hemisphere whale sanctuary non-whaling nations, led by New Zealand,1 want to establish.  The hunt is sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission under Japan's thinly disguised claim that they are killing all those whales primarily to conduct a scientific study of their migrations and feeding patterns.

Naoko Funahashi of the International Fund for Animal Welfare charges that the real purpose behind the planned killing is commercial profit.  Japanese whalers killed  100 minkes, 50 Bryde's and 8 sperm whales in the north Pacific earlier this spring and summer.

Japan has succeeded in carrying out this profitable whale "research" partly by buying the votes of impoverished countries and the support of those countries which also favor the resumption of commercial whaling.

Discrepancies in population estimates have still to be resolved.  Pro-whaling countries claim that the numbers of some species, principally minkes, are large enough to sustain commercial whaling.  Other countries question their math and point to the billion dollar whale-watching industry positing that it is of more commercial value than selling whale flesh. 

Humanitarians world wide deplore the inescapable cruelty entailed in killing such large animals.  The next IWC conference, which is to be held in Japan, is scheduled for May.

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