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Sunday, Dec 23, 2007
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Japan drops humpback hunt

Suspension for a year or two, but no change in stance on “research whaling”

— Photo: AFP/ CWRT-IFAW/HO

Persisting threat: An entangled 40-foot humpback whale that was dragging 75 lobster traps and their connecting ropes and anchors and facing certain death on December 19. Taken about six nautical miles off New Brunswick in Canada, the photograph was received courtesy the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

TOKYO: Japan has suspended its first humpback whale hunt in seas off Antarctica since the 1960s. In doing this, the government has backed down in an escalating international battle over the expansion of its hunt.

Japan dropped the planned taking of 50 humpbacks — which have been off-limits to commercial hunting since 1966 — on the urging of the U.S, the chair of the International Whaling Commission, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.

“The government has decided to suspend hunts of humpback whales while talks to normalise [relations with] IWC are taking place,” Mr. Machimura said. He added that the suspension would last a year or two. “But there will be no changes to our stance on our research whaling itself.”

Japan dispatched its whaling fleet last month to the southern Pacific in the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s, generating widespread criticism. Japanese whaling officials said on Friday that they had not harpooned any humpbacks yet.

Australian stand

The move defuses for now a high-profile row with Australia, though Japanese officials deny they were influenced by Canberra’s anti-whaling position. Australia announced on Wednesday that it would dispatch surveillance planes and a ship to gather evidence for a possible international legal challenge to the hunt.

It was unlikely, however, to quell the increasingly bold high-seas protests against Japan’s scientific whaling research programme, under which it kills a total of 1,000 whales — mostly minkes — a year in the Pacific.

Japan has wrestled with the IWC for years to overturn its 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, and recently has called for a “normalisation” of the group to return to its original mission of managing sea resources, rather than banning whaling.

The decision followed talks between Japan and the U.S. over state of the IWC, said Hideki Moronuki, chief of the Fisheries Agency’s whaling division. The State Department had warned Japan that some anti-whaling nations could boycott IWC meetings, he said.

“That goes against the intentions of Japan, which have sought a normalized IWC,” said Mr. Moronuki, who has been an energetic and outspoken proponent of Japan’s whaling programme.

Commercial hunts of humpback whales — which were nearly harpooned to extinction in the 20th century — were banned in the Southern Pacific in 1963, and that ban was extended worldwide in 1966.

Some recovery

The American Cetacean Society estimates the humpback population has recovered to about 30,000 to 40,000 — about a third of the number before modern whaling. The species is listed as “vulnerable” by the World Conservation Union.

The decision was cheered by anti-whaling nations — with reservations. “While this is a welcome move, the Australian government strongly believes that there is no credible justification for the hunting of any whales,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said, adding it would continue with its surveillance plans.

Mr. Smith also conveyed a similar message to his Japanese counterpart, Masahiko Komura, during their telephone talks later on Friday, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Mr. Smith said the problem is not just humpback hunts, while Mr. Komura justified Japan’s research whaling.

Karli Thomas, who is leading a Greenpeace expedition heading to the southern Pacific, also lauded the development. “This is good news indeed, but it must be the first step towards ending all whaling in the Southern Ocean, not just one species for one season,” he said in a statement from on board the group’s ship, Esperanza.

Linked to poverty

Coastal communities in Japan have hunted whales for centuries, but whale meat was not eaten widely here until the U.S. occupation officials encouraged it in the poverty stricken years after the Second World War.

Despite the commercial hunting ban, Japan is permitted under the IWC rules to kill whales for "scientific research." The meat is sold under the programme and often ends up as pricey items in specialty restaurants. However, its popularity as a staple has plummeted with the availability of beef and other meat varieties.

Other plans

Despite the suspension of the humpback hunt, Japan still plans to take as many as 935 minke whales and up to 50 fin whales in the Antarctic in what the Fisheries Agency says is its largest-ever scientific whale hunt. Japan also takes more minkes in the northern Pacific later in the year.

Critics, however, say the scientific programme is a ruse for Japan to keep its whaling industry alive until it can overturn the commercial ban.

Protesters in boats earlier this year dogged the Japanese fleet, which eventually had to cut the hunt short when a fire damaged one of its hunting ships. — AP

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