Right: General Douglas Macarthur; the American military commander who was put in control of the Japanese after their defeat in World War Two. One of Macarthur's acts was to convert a few small naval vessels to whale-hunting ships, in order to supply the Japanese population with protein.
Arguments against Japan resuming commercial whaling
1. Whale meat consumption is not popular in Japan Small-scale whaling is traditional in some parts of Japan, but whale meat was only ever popular in the post-war period when food shortages caused it to be widely consumed. General McArthur, who headed the US occupation force, authorized two military tankers to become giant whaling ships establishing industrial whaling in Japan. Kazuhiko Kobayashi, an agronomy professor and the co-author of Japan's Dietary Transition and Its Impacts, has stated, 'Whale has lost its position among the animal meats, and will belong more to the category of curious foods for the predominant majority of Japanese.' A 2006 poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the independent Nippon Research Centre found that 95 percent of Japanese people very rarely or never eat whale meat. A 2008 Greenpeace survey found that four out of five major supermarkets and sushi chains had decided to give up selling it for lack of demand. The amount of uneaten frozen whale meat stockpiled in Japan doubled to 4,600 tons between 2002 and 2012. Similarly, a Times report published on June 15, 2012, stated, 'In a series of auctions this year, the government organisation that markets the meat sold only a quarter of the 1200 tonnes of whale hunted last year, leaving 909 tonnes unsold. On top of unsold meat from previous hunts, this brings to 4700 tonnes the total amount of whale stockpiled in Japan.' In 1962 Japan harvested 233,000 tons of whale meat for sale, while in 2013 it is projected that only 2,400 tons of whale meat was likely to be sold in the country because of low market demand according to information obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Tsunetoshi Ishida of the Institute of Cetacean Research, a pro-whaling organisation, stated, 'We've been having difficulties selling meat from research whaling for the past three or four years. I have to admit that things are difficult...' Junko Sakuma has been researching Japan's whaling industry between 2006 and 2016. According to Junko's research, the average consumption of whale meat by Japanese people in 2015 was just 30g (one ounce) per person. 2. Whale meat will not increase Japanese food self-sufficiency From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s whale meat was the single biggest source of meat in Japan. At its peak in 1964 Japan killed more than 24,000 whales in one year, most of them enormous fin whales and sperm whales. However, contemporary Japan is not self-sufficient in food. Dietary preferences play a large role in Japan's relatively low level of food self-sufficiency. Japan's calorie-based self-sufficiency rate (that is the percentage of the average citizen's calorie intake which comes from Japanese-grown foodstuffs), which stood at 73 percent in 1965, has steadily declined for decades as people's lifestyles and dietary habits have changed. After dipping below 50 percent in 1989 and experiencing subsequent ups and downs, the rate has largely hovered around 40 percent since 1997. Food self-sufficiency figures have declined in line with the drop in the consumption of rice, whose domestic output nearly covers the nation's needs, and the increase in demand for meat, whose production depends heavily on feed imports and on imported meat products. Those who argue that whaling could make Japan less reliant on imported livestock feed and imported meat ignore the relative unpopularity of whale meat. Today, Japan can afford to import meat and cattle feed from Australia, America and other nations. There is no deep-sea commercial whaling in Japan. Of the thousands of fish wholesalers in Tokyo's famous Tsukiji fish market only two still deal in whale meat. As a reflection of the realities of the Japanese food market, the Japanese government has recently lowered it food self-sufficiency target from 50 to 45 percent. The Japanese government currently appears to believe that the best way of guaranteeing Japan's food supplies is to import from a wide range of countries so that a supply failure from one exporting country will not leave Japan vulnerable to food shortages. In addition, it has been noted that improvements in agricultural practices may be able to reduce Japanese dependence on imported livestock feed. Further, the declining Japanese population is expected to reduce pressure on suppling sufficient food. 3. Whale populations remain at risk Although whale numbers of generally increased since a prohibition was imposed on commercial whaling, whale authorities argue that whales are still under threat from a variety of sources. Whale hunting has been noted as a danger to individual animals and to whole species whose numbers are small. Broadly, environmental factors such as climate change, chemical pollution and noise pollution are a threat to all whale species and are compounded by the impact of whale hunting. The International Whaling Commission has stated, 'Threats to cetaceans can be said to incorporate two broad categories. The first are those that result in death in the short-term such as direct hunting (e.g. whaling) and accidental/incidental mortality (e.g. bycatches in fishing gear, ship strikes). At the level of the individual animal, this is of course always a problem... The other category of threats is more difficult to identify and especially quantify - those that can be said to affect the 'overall fitness' of the population with respect to reproductive success and/or survivorship and that are generally related to environmental degradation. These include such factors as chemical pollution, noise pollution, overexploitation of prey, disturbance, climate change, etc. At the level of the individual animal these may not always appear to be a problem (for example a female whose reproductive ability has been impaired may seem perfectly healthy), but at the population level they may represent a serious threat. These environmental factors can affect populations of all species...' Those who oppose a resumption of whale hunting therefore do so for a combination of reasons in terms of species survival. They are concerned immediately to protect species whose numbers are currently in decline, and they are also concerned to protect other species whose numbers currently appear health, but who are subject to great pressure from environment degradation. With regard to minke whales, the primary species that Japan would be hunting commercially and the species Japan is currently hunting for what it cites as 'research purposes', a number of surveys have indicated that the species is in decline. The International Whaling Commission has stated, 'Commercial exploitation of Antarctic minke whales (the smallest of the large whales) began in the early 1970s, much later than the other large whale species. There are several hundred thousand Antarctic minke whales and thus they are clearly not endangered. However, there has been an appreciable decline in their estimated abundance between the multi-year circumpolar surveys conducted between 1982/83-1988/89 and 1991/92-2003/04. Present estimates of total Antarctic abundance range from around 460,000 - 690,000 (two methods).' 4. There are no humane methods of whale hunting Opponents of whale hunting note that the practice inevitably entails great suffering for the whales as there is no quick or humane method of killing them. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has claimed, 'Whales are the largest animals on the planet - which means killing one is no easy task. The practice of whale hunting is therefore one of unimaginable cruelty and suffering. This is how Dr Lillie, a ship's physician on an Antarctic whaling expedition in 1946, described what he saw: "If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it." The IFAW has stated that whale hunting methods have not improved appreciably since this observation was made more than 70 years ago. The IFAW has listed the methods typically employed today in order to catch and kill whales. It notes, 'Whales are often pursued to the point of exhaustion before they are harpooned. Exploding harpoons are often not fatal, and some whales are harpooned multiple times before they die. Wounded, harpooned whales are dragged to whaling vessels, where they may be speared with more harpoons or shot with high-powered rifles. Whales which are harpooned near the tail and then winched in alive to the bow of the catcher ship eventually die of suffocation as their heads are forced underwater. Because whales are able to slow their breathing and heart rate, many which appear dead or unconscious are probably still feeling extreme pain.' Since bans were imposed on whaling in the 1983 both Norway and Japan have experimented with more efficient and hopefully humane methods of killing whales, including a new type of harpoon using a grenade head containing penthrite explosive. Survey data from Norwegian whaling operations in 1993 reveal levels of suffering which critics of whaling condemn as little improved and still inflicting unacceptable distress on the animals. Fifty percent of whales did not die instantly. The average time to die was three and a half minutes. The longest recorded time to death was 55 minutes and six percent of whales took at least fifteen minutes to die. Critics note that not included in this data is the stress caused the whale during the chase nor the distress of the whole group when one of its number is chased and killed in a painful and protracted way. 5. Whale-based tourism is of greater economic benefit than whale hunting Opponents of whale hunting claim that in terms of economic return, whale-based tourism returns greater economic benefits than whaling. In an article published in The Conversation on February 20, 2012, Stephen Wearing, Associate Professor, Management at the University of Technology, Sydney, noted that participation in whale watching grew from 9 million tourists to Japan in 2001 to 13 million in 2008, with revenues rising from $1 billion to $2.1 billion per annum over that period. The Professor observed, 'Whaling, on the other hand, relies heavily on state and private subsidies.' He concluded, 'The state-supported whaling industry in Japan has made consistent losses over the past 20 years - an estimated US$223 million since 1988 - and amassed a stockpile of whale meat estimated at 4000 tonnes in 2010.' Opponents of whaling have further observed that successful whale watching businesses have been launched out of former whaling and fishing ports, offering an alternative economy for those communities. Thus, whale-based tourism has the potential not only to offer Japan far greater financial returns overall, but also to supply direct economic advantages in terms of employment and boosted local income in the very communities where whaling is failing. |
Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said.