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Whaling

Demand for whale meat is down. Why did Japan just resume commercial whaling?

John Bacon
USA TODAY
Whaling boats leave a port in Kushiro, Hokkaido, northern Japan on Monday, July 1, 2019. Japan is resuming commercial whaling for the first time in 31 years, a long-cherished goal seen as a largely lost cause.

Japanese commercial ships hunting whales for the first time in more than three decades caught at least two minke whales Monday and hoped to "hand over our country's rich whaling culture to the next generation."

The nation's Fisheries Agency said it has set "extremely conservative" quotas designed to allow continuous whale hunting for the next 100 years with no harmful impact on the whale population.

Renewing the practice is a win for traditionalists that also extricates the government from its costly and contentious "research" whaling program. It's just not clear who will actually eat the stuff.

"My heart is overflowing with happiness," said Yoshifumi Kai, head of the Japan Small-Type Whaling Association. “This is a small industry, but I am proud of hunting whales. People have hunted whales for more than 400 years in my hometown."

The Australian Marine Conservation society took a different tack. Darren Kindleysides, the group's CEO, called whaling "outdated and cruel" and noted that demand for whale meat has dwindled.

“If the Japanese government thought that by leaving the IWC it could wash its hands of its duties under international law, then it was wrong," he said, adding that "today is a historic moment for all the wrong reasons."

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The limits allow for harvesting of 227 minke, Bryde's and sei whales over the next six months in Japanese waters. Release of the quota had been planned for late June but apparently was withheld until completion of the Group of 20 summit held in Osaka over the weekend.

"We will conduct commercial whaling based on scientific grounds and appropriate resource management," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said. "We hope it will get on track as quickly as possible, rejuvenate the community and lead to the hand over of our country's rich whaling culture to the next generation."

Whales caught in coastal waters are expected to be brought back for fresh local consumption at any of six local whaling hubs. Whale meat caught further off the coast will be frozen and distributed for wider consumption.

The hunt began one day after Japan formally withdrew from the International Whaling Commission. While a member, Japan had drawn criticism for whaling it conducted under the guise of research.

A whaling boat leaves a port in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan on Monday, July 1, 2019.

Under Japan's new guidelines, whaling in the Antarctic Ocean is banned and research whaling will halt. The Fisheries Agency said the whale haul is actually expected to decline under the new rules.

Other whaling nations have seen catches fall well below quotas. Iceland, with a quota of 378, caught only 17 whales in the 2017-2018 season. Norway hunted 432, about one-third of its quota.

Under its research hunts, Japan at its peak caught as many as 1,200 whales. It drastically cut back on its catch in recent years after international protests escalated and whale meat consumption slumped at home. The research whaling program lost money for years – $15 million in the last year alone.

The annual domestic consumption of whale meat, about 200,000 tons in the 1960s, has fallen to around 5,000 tons in recent years, according to government data.

In the northern city of Kushiro, whaling ship captain Takashi Takeuchi told Kyodo news service he "felt uneasy" about the outlook for commercial whaling in Japan.

Hideki Abe, 22, works aboard a whaling ship, said the youth of Japan will be key to whaling's future.

"I hope the younger generations will get accustomed to eating whale meat," he said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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