Japan's Research Whaling: The Few, The Proud, The Few

The poor wee thing...

The speeches were defiant, the fists were pumped. Representatives from faraway locales feeling similarly beset came to show their support. (Link -J)

However, in the the bleak emptiness of what was once a crowded port area, the pathos of the start of Ayukawa's 2014 research whaling season could not be missed. As a surfeit of helmeted public security forces putt-putted around in the tiny harbor, disorganized ranks of hunters, their feeble numbers boosted by platooned female office staff members in uniform, pledged to fight to keep Japan's whaling traditions alive.

If this was an pep rally, it was for an industry on its way out. (Link - J -video)

The 18 April 2014 Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries handout makes clear, Japan's ambitions as regards a revival of commercial whaling are modest and growing ever more so.

In the aftermath of the International Court of Justice's invalidation of the Southern Ocean pelagic research whaling program (JARPA II), the Ministry hopes to submit a new Southern Ocean research whaling plan to the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee next year, with MAFF offering no projection of a desired date for an actual resumption of JARPA permit whaling.

As for the North Pacific research whaling program (JARPN II), rather than being increased to compensate for the loss of the southern hunt, it has seen its quotas lowered for all species, with a complete abandonment of the pelagic hunts for Minke and Sperm whales. (Link - J)

Species quotas for Japan's northern great whale hunts in 2014, and the previous year's quotas:

Coastal whaling

Minke 100 animals (120)

Pelagic whaling

Minke 0 (100)
Bryde's 20 (50)
Sei 90 (100)
Sperm 0 (10)

The start of the coastal portion of JARPN II 2014 was delayed for four days. According to new reports the cause of the delay was the implementation of measures responding to the ICJ's ruling. However, a wish to delay the opening of the season until after U.S. President Barack Obama was well outside the country might also have played a part in the decision.

Hayashi Yoshimasa, you do eat right (Link) but where is thy ambition? Why do you not adhere to the tradition of obdurate stupidity of the great MAFF minister of old?

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Screen shot of first Minke whale taken in 2014 coastal research whaling hunt courtesy NHK.

For the Australians About Whaling in Japan

Since the Australian government has taken the hardest of hardline stances regarding whaling in recent years, some random idiosyncratic thoughts about means by which a larger number of whales might get saved, particularly in light of the Maquieira proposal, where the operative paragraph is:

Fundamental components of this consensus decision are to: bring whaling by all members under the control of the IWC; reduce catch levels significantly; limit operations to those members who currently take whales; establish caps that are within sustainable levels for a ten year period; enhance monitoring and control measures; create a South Atlantic sanctuary; and provide a mechanism for enterprise and capacity building for developing countries. Members agree not to authorize whaling outside IWC control and not to exceed the prescribed catch limits (Appendix A). Subsistence whaling by indigenous people that was previously approved by the Commission will continue under existing management measures. The Commission will now refer to aboriginal subsistence whaling as indigenous subsistence whaling.

- Stop warning about catastrophe "after the resumption of commercial whaling" - Despite the best efforts of Greenpeace and others confuse the public on this issue, commercial whaling never ended in Japan. After the imposition of the moratorium in 1986, the five municipalities with small-scale coastal whaling operations (Hakodate, Ayukawa, Abashiri, Wadaura and Taiji) shifted from hunting the now protected and numerous Minke whales to hunting rarer toothed species: Baird's Beaked whales, false killer whales and Risso's dolphins. In addition to the small-scale coastal whaling operations some fisheries cooperatives in Hokkaido, Iwate, Wakayama and Okinawa prefectures conduct under-reported "hand harpoon" hunts of hundreds of toothed whales and smaller cetaceans.

A limited commercial hunt of abundant species carried out under international supervision seems preferable to the current policy, which has encouraged largely invisible hunts of species not protected by the IWC moratorium.

- Don't get hung up about the research whaling exception - Japanese negotiators are fighting for the right to continue conduct research whaling operations in the Southern Ocean even after the lifting of the moratorium on commercial whaling of some of the 13 IWC-regulated whale species.

Before gagging, remember that having the right to do something does not mean that one will do something. The costs of manning and sending a factory ship and harpoon ships south of the Equator, with the chance that the Sea Shepherd and its brethren will be waiting for them, all in order to collect only a tiny number of whales allowed under the new quota system, will not pass the fiscal sanity test. The Hatoyama government is already dragging every government-supported program over the coals in search of savings. It is not going to keep a factory ship program going when Japan's meat needs can be satisfied either by near-shore hunts in the North Pacific or imports from Norway and Iceland.

For a country that cannot use military force as a means of settling disputes, the protection of rights guaranteed by treaty, even useless ones, is an obsession. Japan's negotiators need to preserve the right to conduct research whaling even if (especially if) the new government wants to phase out the actual conduct of research whaling expeditions.

- Demand unified data collection - Currently, the data on number of small cetaceans killed and processed in Japan is collected by the individual prefectural governments and the five municipalities conducting coastal whaling. The pelagic research whaling expeditions report to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. With all the people at working in the Fisheries Agency, the purported scientific approach to whaling, and the international political pressure continued whaling brings upon Japan, one would think that the government would have a rigorous, unified, timely and easily accessible national database on whale hunts and the whale meat industry.

Not exactly.

- Get the by-catch numbers in the totals - One of the tragedies of normal purse sein and drift net fishing is that large numbers of seabirds, sharks and sea mammals die in the nets. For some reason, however, there is virtually no mention of the domestic market's absorption of the large number of baleen whales killed during the course of fishing operations. In 2008 (the latest figures I have found) 136 baleen whales (133 Minke, 2 humpbacks, 1 fin) were landed and recorded as by-catch. The flesh of all of these baleen whales was consumed, with 128 of them being sold for a profit in the domestic commercial whale meat market.

- Insist on commercialism - If commercial harvesting of IWC-regulated species is to resume, then the hunt has to be commercial. No more government subsidies to the hunters or their communities, or sleazy wheezes like distributing whale meat for free to the public schools so students "can get a taste of life as it was 50 years ago."

- Be patient - Impatience with the Japanese government, as exemplified by the direct actions taken as at sea of the Sea Shepherd Society, has hardened public support for Japan's various whaling operations. Rather than going for a complete reversal of prior behaviors, work hard to get a reduction in the numbers of cetaceans being killed, even if it means a resumption of commercial hunts of IWC-regulated species. After the new regime is in place, work on convincing the citizenry that whaling is inhumane and pointless. Make the decline or cancellation of the hunt due to domestic pressures, not international ones.

Besides, there is a new ruling party in Japan. The folks behind the "Japan" sign are different from the crowd at the 60th annual meeting. Sure, the ministry bureaucrat may be the same, but his/her boss is not. Work with these new people; they want to work with you.

- Forget about the International Court of Justice - For two reasons:

1) Only the very best of Japan's students pass the entrance examinations to enter Tokyo University...and only the best of those who enter Tokyo University enter the Faculty of Law...and only the very best of those who graduate from the Faculty of Law enter into the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs...and only the very best of those who enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs get selected to serve in the Treaties Bureau. The Bruces and Sheilas of the Treaties Bureau know more about language than a cartload of philologists...and they know every comma, period, preposition, suffix, adverb and semi-colon in every treaty Japan has ever signed.

You think you can take these folks on?

What about the matter of the president of the International Court of Justice's being the Crown Prince's beloved wife's dad?

(What bureau was ICJ President Owada the Director-General of in the Foreign Ministry? The Treaties Bureau.)

2) Two years ago, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd characterized the whaling dispute as "an important disagreement between friends."

You do not sue your friends.