Greens and Governments Condemn Whale Hunt
An uneasy alliance of governments and environmental groups have united in condemning Japan for going ahead with its largest-ever whale hunt, in which it plans to slaughter more than 1,000 whales.
Greenpeace intends to shadow the fleet as it sails from Japan to Antarctic waters, while the more militant Sea Shepherd group plans to take direct action to disrupt the whale hunt.
Greenpeace’s ship was yesterday just outside Japanese territorial and hoping to find the whaling fleet as it steamed south to embark on the country’s biggest hunt since commercial whaling was banned.
The Japanese will, for the first time since a 1963 moratorium, aim to kill 50 protected humpback whales, a species popular with whale watchers because of its spectacular acrobatic behaviour and haunting ’songs’. The whales will be harpooned, ensuring a slow and agonizing death. It will also harvest 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.
Australians are particularly concerned about the fate of what is believed to be the world’s only completely white humpback whale, nicknamed Migaloo, which has become a celebrity for his annual migration along the country’s east coast.
“It’s a large ocean, but we’re going to track them down,” Greenpeace expedition member Dave Walsh said on board the Esperanza. “They’re playing a little hard to get.”
On Sunday, the Japanese expedition was farewelled on its five-month voyage from the port of Shimonoseki, where families waved flags emblazoned with smiling whales and a brass band played “Popeye the Sailor Man.”
The good cheer will not last long - the head of the fleet described the campaigners as “violent environmental terrorists.”
During the last whaling season, Sea Shepherd said it would attack the Japanese fleet with a ship fitted with a bulldozer-type blade nicknamed the “can opener”.
Sea Shepherd’s president, Paul Watson, threatened to use the ram to give the Japanese fleet’s factory ship, Nissin Maru, a “steel enema”.
Flying a Jolly Roger pirate flag, the group attacked the whalers with nail guns and foul-smelling acid after a five-week cat and mouse chase in the Southern Ocean.
This year Sea Shepherd has threatened to deploy “new equipment for intervention” when it sets out for Antarctic waters from Melbourne next week as part of ‘Operation Migaloo’.
Capt Watson has called on Australia and New Zealand to “defend Anzac honour by kicking their ruthless whale killing arses out of the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary.”
But Sean McCormack, spokesman for the US State Department, urged anti-whaling groups to use “restraint and measured approaches” in their protests.
“The sinking or damaging of a vessel in this area could have catastrophic consequences for the crews involved, the environment, and indeed the living resources all parties cherish in the region,” Mr McCormack said.
Assuming the hunt was, as Japan contended, for scientific purposes, non-lethal methods exist that could achieve the same goals, he said.
“We call on Japan to refrain from conducting this year’s hunt, especially with respect to humpback and fin whales,” he said.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Helen Clark, accused the Japanese of “deception” in arguing that they were killing whales for scientific research.
“We don’t like the Japanese whaling fleet being down there at all,” she said.
Britain is considering making a “high-level diplomatic protest” to Japan, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said. In Australia the opposition Labour party, tipped to win power at a general election on Saturday, said it was time to “rattle the cage”. “It’s unacceptable that it’s not only going on, but getting worse,” said Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland.
Labour has pledged that, if elected, it will use the Australian military to monitor the whaling fleet and compile evidence which could be used in international courts to end the hunting.
Prime Minister John Howard said that while he disagreed with whaling, he opposed bringing in the military.
“What, is he going to shoot them?” he asked. “Mr McClelland knows darn well that what he is suggesting is an empty gesture, that what we should be doing is continuing to pursue diplomatically, and with whatever legal mechanisms are available to us, this issue.”
Japan says it needs to kill whales to conduct research on their age, breeding habits and feeding patterns.
Environmental groups say that is rubbish, that valuable research can be conducted without harming the animals. They accuse Japan of using science as a cover for commercial whaling.
An International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986, but Japan has killed almost 10,500 mostly minke and Bryde’s whales under “research permits” since then.
Whale facts
Humpback whales can reach 50ft long and weigh 40 tonnes.
The American Cetacean Society estimates the humpback population has recovered from near extinction to about 30,000-40,000.
The species is listed as “vulnerable” by the World Conservation Union.
Despite the supposed scientific aim of the hunt, whale meat ends up in Japanese schools, old people’s homes, supermarkets and restaurants.
Japan argues that eating whale meat is a cultural tradition.
Its fleet will roam the Southern Ocean in search of whales between now and April.
Some of the whales are likely to be harpooned within an Australian-declared whale sanctuary, off the Australian Antarctic Territory, which Tokyo refuses to recognize.
Last year the Japanese caught around 500 minkes but the hunting season was curtailed after a fire broke out on the main factory ship, killing a crewman.
© 2007 TheTelegraph
As usual there are people with money making agendas involved in raping and pillaging our planet, and we’re asked to sit by quietly and allow it. It is interesting that those who have these agendas have managed to manipulate the system so that their behavior is legal, and enforced with police and military power…whereas we who simply want to live and let live, who want clean air and water, undamaged forests, non pesticide laden food, a planet inhabited by a multitude of animal, bird and insect species…we must back down, go quietly our own way, shut up and put up…or face arrest, physical attack and verbal abuse if we dare to object. They certainly have worked things out to their own advantage. The Japanese should be deeply embarrassed and ashamed of their deception and self centered bahavior.
Those whales are one of the reasons for global warming and must be taken care of. Ever had a whale steak? Yum yum.
Contact your nearest auto dealer and say I cannot and will not, in the name of science, buy a new Japanese vehicle every again, until the Japanese nation stops this insane slaughter! Money talks. There are other vehicles besides Japanese that get just as good service and dependability.
Good idea SWAHEAL
KEM, you just go git your harpoon and little boat, and I’ll be rootin for you.
What I realize is these are super intelligent mammals that have to breath air from the surface. They are tracked by sonar and don’t have a chance of avoiding death; and they know it. HOW SAD!
I truely would not be surprised to learn, that the sea mammals are more intelligent than humans. I cannot imagine anyone harming one of them, and or, then using them for food. Hell, the Japanese round up and kill poprpoise, because the poprpoise eat tuna and hurt the tuna fishing industry.
And the article states it not good to sink a ship there. Whats the difference? Sink Em!
And Canada slaughters baby seals claiming that they eat cod(how dare a species that lives in the water eat from the water?) even though it was idiot humans that destroyed the East Coast fisheries.
Most japanese dont eat whale meat-just as most Canadians(I hope) dont think we should be clubbing baby seals to death with a spiked club in order to supply Chiense with aphrodisiacs to tackle their underpopulation problem and Russian prostitutes with coats.
The japanese government likes to say that the West eat cattle and pigs(who are highly intelligent) but–Japan ALSO eats them, just not in large numbers. Not a defense of meat eating–but a hollow excuse for whalers to use.
Japan’s goal was always to expand whaling. They supported the Makah whale hunts for that purpose.
Once again we have science being used as an excuse for exploitation.
I have no sympathy at all for the whalers and if their ship sank i would have a big smile.
I still think it’s dumb that baby seals and whales and other heart-string pulling animals get all the attention when our consumer patterns are threatening like half of all biodiversity.
I also think it’s dumb to boycott Japanese cars, when they are the most durable and they seem to be the only ones concerned with making eco-friendly ones.
Whether it is hunting whales, clubbing seals, poaching tigers or eating cattle and pigs, it is all bad. However, the whale hunt is loaded with symbolism, and it is one that we can all get our heads around (much like the opposition to the slaughter of elephants). Ironically, whale meat (like seal meat) tastes awful, and young Japanese are not fond of it (hence the whaling industry is trying to make it “mandatory” in school cafeterias, in order to foster a “demand” for it). This fight will be won by winning over the younger generations of Japanese, who simply do not adhere to the traditions and practices of their elders in the numbers required in order to keep the practice alive. Personally, I used to be opposed to the “militant” practices of the Sea Shepherd society, but I have come around to supporting them far more than I do Greenpeace, who seem to be more interested in taking pictures and making posters than they are in actually trying to stop the hunt. Whatever it takes to make the Japanese stop the whale hunt should be pursued, and with vigour. Dig into your pocket, and donate a few bucks to the people who are fighting to end the whale hunt. Your grandkids will love you for it.
They don’t get all of the attention you ding bat.
They want to do to the whales what they have done to blue fin tuna and other fish species harpoons or drift nets, explosives and bottom fishing species into extinction,eat them all. I know lets go on a scrap metal hunt in the Antarctic,harpoon the whale hunters and tow their vessels back for scrap so what if a few crew errr die,Stuff the land and stuff the sea’s its all there to be exploited by those chasing the $$,dynamiting reef’s or using chlorine bombs for fishing all illegal fishing and harvesting of the oceans should be stopped.One way is sink a couple of their ships and let some survive to go home and tell how they was sunk, bet they wouldn’t come back again for a long time.
Japan is cultivating the image of a hoard of locusts eating and extinguishing every living thing in sight
I am sitting here praying that a rogue wave hits the Japanese whaling boats, splits them in two and sinks them. And if they ever have the stupidity to go out again, it will happen again. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Of course I’m also praying that the Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd ships are spared.
And I agree to boycott Japanese goods, including cars, until they announce they are through whaling. Screw ‘em.
now i am really depressed.
Those ships should be attacked and disabled.
Write the Prime Minister of Japan here:
http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment.html
and get more info here:
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/takeActionContacts.html
OR sink their fuckin’ fleet, or BOTH
I’m so sick of these murderin’ Japanese whalers gettin’ away with this crap.
Go get ‘em Sea Shepherd!!
I would say that this whale hunt is terrorism.
Bush should send a cruise missile and put an end to the terrorists.
Remember Pearl Harbor!
Golly I just left a couple of sites where several bloggers write we treated the Japanese terrible during the War. Now I’m hearng the type of comments about them that I heard in 1941 thru 1946.
BTW, I spent two years in Japan and one could purchase whale meat at their farmer/fish markets at any time. I ate some once at a friends home who was married to a Japanese lady, believing I was getting a Kobe beef steak. It was a huge steak and I’m shamed to say, was the best tastng steak I ever had. But that disgrace aside, I cannot see how anyne could kill a sea mammal and feel good about it. I know they do, but I’ll personally never understand it.
I guess the Japanese don’t follow the Buddhist teaching of nonviolence, no killing of any sentient being, or vegetarianism……hmmm
Some Inuit friends of mine gave me some muktuk to eat once, and it didn’t taste all that good to me.
It seems that humans cannot stop killing things. As has been mentioned here we may yet see the last of the whales, elephants, gorillas, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh, NO! Anything that might be at all useful to humans is apparently ours to take. It is a mentality that has to change. I fear the animals will just die off from climate changes they can’t keep up with and our human indifference and greed will help speed up their demise.
I have wished I could have seen America when my first ancestors arrived here in 1751. It must have been so beautiful. Travellling America you see it is still beautiful in many places but too many are threatened. How much longer will it last? They are taking down mountains, filling up streams, paving over meadows, cutting down forests…what is it with our species?
many thanks to ncycat, swaheal, papananook, and all of you for your excellent writing and thinking; I have sent the following distillation to the adadress kindly provided. we might could get a good thing going here!
“To the government and people of Japan:
The whales of the southern oceans and of the world do not belong to you.
You continue to allow your whalers — a tiny minority of Japanese — to put their own greed first as they rape and pillage and murder some of the most beautiful beings we share this earth our home with.
You seem to expect the rest of us in the world to sit by quietly and allow it.
How have you and your greed-crazed whalers managed to corrupt our global consciousness so that such ugly behavior is considered ‘legal’, and is enforced with police and military power?
Most people in the world – including most Japanese — respect the sanctity of all life; most of us simply want to live and let live; we all want clean air and water, undamaged forests, food without poisonous chemicals; we want our children to share our planet home with a multitude and diversity plant and animal species of all kinds – as we have.
Do you expect us to back down, to go quietly our own way, to shut up and put up – or to face arrest, physical attack and verbal abuse if we dare to object to your destructive greed?
You should be deeply embarrassed and ashamed of the deceptive and self-centered behavior with which you dirty the image of the entire Japanese people.
How many people boycotting your automobiles and your electronics will it take until you stop whaling?
We will find out together.
Thank you.”
I had o’possum pie once and it was horrible, as is English kidney pie. It’s like eating the sludge from the bottom of a swill bucket.
I thought muktuk was primarily blubber. At least the isolated Eskimos don’t kill for money, they only kill animals for food and the bones they use for tools and art work. The only thing left of one of their kills is the animals breath. They waste nothing.
“the head of the fleet described the campaigners as “violent environmental terrorists.””
Unbelievable. What a great example of how the word “terrorist” is being used to slam anyone who dissents against the institutionalized violence and depravity that takes place under the auspices of the state. Whether it be Japan, the US, Pakistan, Israel, etc., it’s all the same. We are called “terrorists,” while the real terrorists continue to torture and kill millions of innocent human and non-human lives.
KEM PATRICK, LOL. Possum or kidney pies don’t sound delectable to me.
Muktuk IS blubber and skin. It’s a delicacy. You’re right, the Inuit only kill for subsistence food to supplement their diet. They don’t kill for the purpose of selling it to make money.
HI IiIIUIU, yes our bodies require some fat or we’ll die. There was an author who once lived with the wolves for a full year in Northern Canada. He was going to write a book about them. He did too, but I cannot recall the title.
He lived as they did, they even half way accepted him. He ate the same food they did, sat and howled at night and essentially, eventually, became a wolf. It turned out that the prmimary diet of the wolves was rodents, rats and mice. They eat hundreds of them every day when they don’t have a large kill to fight over.
So this guy killed and ate mice and rats. He carefully cleaned them of course, before putting them into the stew. Well, after a few months he became quite ill and had to leave for awhile to see a doctor. After some blood tests the doc said he was lacking the vitamins which are in animal fat. Turned out the only fat in rodents is in their intestines.
Soooo, when he returned to his Wolfdom, he had to clean the rat’s and mice intestines’ and then toss them into the pot with the bright red meat and of course the brains, kidneys, liver, ___ never mind. ___ Yum-yum. ___ Now that is dedication. It was a very good book and he stated that if they killed off the wolves, Canada would be overrun with rodents.
Did I get off of the subject?
That was Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat A film was made based on the book that was pretty good.
The Eskimo hunt of whales would never hurt the population. The methods used would only work if there were lots of whales. If the population dropped even slightly they would not have successful hunts and the population would rebound.
Careful use of resources means we could harvest a nice slice of nature forever. Insead some greedy bastards take it all at once then destroy the habitat.
If you want to really go nuts look into the drag net fishing where one pass turns the bottom of the ocean to a dead moonscape.
Hey, Ibe, Thank you. Damn, you are goooood. How do you manage to know so many things?
Whales, Dolphins and Elephants all have larger brains than Humans.
Except for George Bush, his brain is comparable to that of a Mosquito.
Cetaceans are indeed probably more intelligent then we are, they are certainly more peaceful.
Gentle Giants of the Sea.
Just another gruesome example of demand and supply capitalism.
The Japanese are clamoring for Whale meat, and are willing to pay exorbitant sums to acquire this “delicacy”.
This is an antiquated barbaric custom and should not be allowed to continue.
Being a fairly strict Vegan for over 30 years, I personally think it is unsavory and to me immoral to unnecessarily kill animals for food.
But it is especially unacceptable when killing intelligent, endangered animals for avaricious gluttonous taste.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
Hope you all enjoy your Veggies. I know I will savior my mouth watering “Tofurkey”.
Don’t forget to support the Menace.
I’ve seen the leftovers from the “scientific research” in a Ginza supermarket on a number of occasions. Considering how small the market is and the increasing number of companies in Japan dropping out of the whale meat market (including the employer of a former student of mine), it is strange that the Japanese government would continue to embarrass itself with this ongoing “scientific research.” But then again, the political rulers there are a bunch of doddering ninnies.
As for the argument sometimes used that it is part of Japanese culture, I admit that I am all in favour of Japanese fishermen going out in their traditional rickety fishing boats and getting killed in droves by hand-harpooning whales from human-powered boats. This would be sustainable. But it was never part of traditional culture to go out in 7575 ton steel vessels armed with grenade-tipped harpoons. And it was never part of traditional culture to call hunting “scientific research.”
Thank you “Douglas Barnes” for pointing out an important part (that is often missing) of the “traditional/cultural” argument. Historically, whale hunters were granted high status in their communities, because it took really big balls to go out into the ocean in piddly little boats, and try to kill a whale (the whaler didn’t always win in the battle against the whale, the sea, the weather, etc.). The hunt was much more of a test of will, courage, ability and even luck. It was a fight between worthy adversaries. The Inuit who hunted polar bears also garnered the same level of respect within their communities (although for some reason the number of polar bear hunters was always relatively low……….). Today there is no real cultural or traditional element to the hunt; it is a foregone conclusion what will happen, the hunters are mere pussies compared to their ancestors, and there is no life-sustaining necessity to the affair. The arguments for continuing the hunts are hollow, and no amount of “debate” is going to change that. However, in the final analysis, the only way to stop the whale hunt is to make it hurt (in much the same way that the average Inuit knows that hunting polar bears can really hurt………)
Hi there SEQUOIABISON, there is another animal who is brainless besides Bush. Starfish do not have a brain. That’s true. They also are very destructive creatures, ___like Bush.
I had the pleasure of going on a whale tour in the gulf of Maine this summer. Saw humpbacks, finbacks, etc. in their natural habitat — and I’ve got no doubt that the local tourist economy makes more money bringing tourists out to see whales than they would by hunting them. This one company has about 3 large boats, often filled to capacity in the tourist season (100+ each), charge about $50 a head, and probably run a total of 8 tours/day. That’s somewhere around $40,000 per DAY during the tourist season.
If I were president, I’d probably shoot that Japanese ship clear out of the water, without warning, for violating various international agreements.
Some traditional customs can be maintained. Those which rely on breaking international treaties, hunting protected species, etc. cannot.
I should add — sink it discretely of course. Blame it on Al-Qaeda’s antarctic naval terror operations or something. Or just nothing at all. Get someone like Bolton to say, “Oh? A ship sunk? And what was it doing down there? Researching global warming? That’s unfortunate.”
If one visits the open air farmers markets in Southern Japan, say near beautiful Ashiya by the sea, they will find whale meat of many varieties is both often abundant and rather inexpensive. __ Frog legs too.
Thank you for the Japanese congress email - I sent a message stating I would not buy any product made in Japan until they called off the whale hunt.