A Whale of a Controversy

Japan's dolphin-hunting industry gets skewered in The Cove, a just-released documentary by director Louie Psihoyos. But after this year's setbacks at the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting, dolphins aren't the only marine mammals that are in trouble.

BY BRIAN FUNG | JULY 31, 2009

Junko Kimura/Getty Images

Meeting dinner: Children touch a recent catch on July 30 at Wada Port near Tokyo, one of five ports in Japan from which whale hunting is allowed. The world slaughters roughly 1,200 of the animals every year, many of them in western Pacific and Antarctic waters. A worldwide ban on commercial whaling was introduced in 1986 to restore declining whale stocks, but whaling for scientific and cultural reasons is still legal.

Junko Kimura/Getty Images

 

Brian Fung is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy.

ANDREWH1112

12:54 AM ET

August 1, 2009

Wrong!

When will journalists that write about whaling learn that Norway does NOT "ignore" the ban! Brian Fung is a lazy journalist!

Norway legally objected *before* the moratorium was enacted, thus Norway is legally EXEMPT from the "ban". The IWC has no quarrels with this!

The BBC is more informed and always includes the background for whaling in Japan (scientific), Norway (exempt), Iceland, Greenland (aboriginal) and the United States of America (Alaska - aboriginal)!

Norway objected to the ban because the IWC ignored it's own scientific committee! The moratorium was never even meant as a permanent ban, only to allow the whale populations to recover before the hunt began again.

 

DIVAKARSSATHYA

10:39 AM ET

August 3, 2009

A Whale Of A Controversy

Without in any way wanting to mitigate the horror of slaughtering our magnificent animal kin, may i point out that once we have started with killing the cow, mad predatoriness becomes elevated to some kind of heroism and adventure.

Ever heard chicken scream against their slaughter ?

Welcome to:

Yet another "conspiracy in corruption"

Andhra Pradesh High Court's Pernicious Rebellion Against The Law .05/29/09

RTI Act 2005 Abuse In Andhra Pradesh- SIC Cheats! Chief Secretary Lies!05/07/09

Prejudiced CIC Laps Up PMO Lies 05/05/09

Divakar S Natarajan and Varun Gandhi Cannot Both Be Wrong ! 01/28/09

And India’s editorial class will not report the story!

sathyagraha.blogspot.com

Divakar’s Sathyagraha News and views from Divakar S Natarajan’s, “no excuses”, ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India.

Now in its 18th year.

 

PAVAN.ONGOLE

9:03 AM ET

August 5, 2009

Does Japan kill most whales per annum?

I tried to look up the numbers for all 3 countries that do whaling i.e. Japan, Norway & Iceland but was not sure which stats to go by.

Would appreciate if any reader does know and point it out.

 

GRAYMM

12:14 PM ET

August 5, 2009

Whaling is a valuable nutrition source for school children.

Whale is sometimes included in school-provided lunches ("kyuushoku"), which 99% of elementary students and 86% of middle school students eat. But as far as I've seen in Tokyo, whale isn't sold in many restaurants at all. It's a low-cost, high-volume source of nutrition compared with other foods available.

In general, protein is difficult to obtain in Japan. It's so difficult, in fact, that amino acid supplement drinks are sold in every convenience store, grocery store, and many vending machines. In terms of food availability on the island, beef, chicken, and pork are expensive. Sushi is a luxury. Miso soup, soba, eggs, and tofu are the general sources for essential amino acids.

Whales are much larger and give much more meat (16,000 lbs avg for fin whales) than either cows (yield about 500lbs per head) or pigs (about 130lbs per head). It's easy to condemn whaling as inhumane and brutal. It's easy to forget that beef and pork farming is also the killing of a mammalian creature. Strictly by the numbers, whale meat farming means less killing. If the optimal number of killing is zero, and one whale provides as much meat as sixteen head of beef and more than 120 head of pork, it's much less cruel to whale than farm.

Given Japan's small farmland-to-population ratio and its proximity to the ocean, the sea is a valuable food resource, especially for "kyuushoku" lunches, ensuring that growing children have enough protein in their diets.

 

DRZOIDBERG

9:55 PM ET

August 6, 2009

Whaling is not a valuable nutrition source for school children.

As far as I understand, the government is pushing whale meat onto school children whenever it can, not because it is a valuable source of protein, but because it is the only way it can get rid of the vast quantities of meat it has piling up in warehouses.

The Japanese by large no longer eat whale meat, and the number that still do is dropping every year. The meat from the controversial Southern Ocean hunt sits mouldering in warehouses because it cannot be sold or even given away most of the time, and this problem is exacerbated every time the factor ships return.

Much less cruel to whale? Is it much less cruel to shoot a huge mammal with an explosive tipped harpoon, drag it kicking and screaming onto the back of a ship then slaughter it? I'm not saying farming cows of pig is not cruel, but this is not as simple as doing the math.

As for fin whales, they sure do produce a lot of meat. But they are also highly endangered, and extremely important to ocean biodiversity.

Whale meat is also only low-cost because the industry is massively subsidised by the Japanese government. If it were forced to support itself, then it would die overnight because there is no real demand for what it produces. The government would be far better putting its money into supporting a sustainable fishing industry and ensuring Japan can keep eating fish into the future.

 

KLEEBER

1:35 PM ET

August 6, 2009

delicious

I agree with the previous poster, except in a few areas.
As a resident of Tokyo, I occasionally ate whale. However, it was cheap during the post-war years.... now it has reached a "delicacy status". Sushi however, is often very inexpensive. Of course you can spend big yen on it, but every neighborhood has a "conveyor sushi" place where you can end completely stuffed for about 1000 yen (10 USD).

Anyway, eating whale is no different than eating any other animal. Nothing horrifying about it.
Plus, there are many species of whale; as long as what we hunt and eat aren't the endangered ones, why not?

Plus, Greenpeace is hurting the environment by sailing around (using fuel and producing waste) in an effort to hamper legitimate business.

 

DRZOIDBERG

10:09 PM ET

August 6, 2009

no different

Eating whale is no different from any other animal... except that whales and cetaceans in general are highly intelligent, take an extremely long time to reproduce compared to other sea creatures, and have by large been well and truly hunted well beyond what anyone could argue as being sustainable.

Greenpeace uses the most environmentally friendly alternatives whenever possible, however, taking on what is absolutely not a legitimate business in an ocean on the bottom of the world means compromises must be made for the greater good.

Anyone who calls Japan's "scientific" whaling programme a "legitimate business" has no place in a serious discussion of this issue. What legitimate business has to dishonourably hide behind junk "science"? What legitimate business operates in an internationally recognised whale sanctuary, or in a world heritage listed site?

If more people knew how corrupt this programme is, how it is subsidised by billions of yen annually to keep it afloat so a few bureaucrats, businessmen and crew can enrich themselves, how the whales it catches are riddled with cancers which are cut off before the meat is shipped to market, how so much of the meat is dumped overboard because they routinely catch far too many whales each day to process, and how vast quantities of this meat is dumped into warehouses where it sits unsold for years before it is enventually disposed of because no one wants it... if this was more widely known - particularly to Japanese taxpayers - then this industry would dissolve overnight.