Australia hits out at Japan at whale tracking tech launch

wtfjapan: "yes its either 66% or 75% cant recall exactly but it was more than half the votes anyway. which is why the IWC is always in a stalemate."

And you'll notice that many of the nations that support Japan and other whaling nations on this issue are land-locked nations in Africa that have been wined and dined and treated to high-class Japanese prostitutes as bribes, a scandal well known and which made the news a year or more back.

overchan: "Norway killed 1285 mink whales last year."

And wrong as that is, where did they kill them? Far away from their own nation, in the Southern Ocean? :)

The level of anti-whaling feeling in Australia is considerable. It is the single most intense basis that anti-Japanese feeling exists in Australia. Without that, there is widespread respect for the Japanese since few know about the Taiji cove clubbing of dolphins.

"The IWC.....need scientific data to conduct studies, reach conclusions and make recommendations"

The IWC have said they don't need lethal research data and have asked Japan on several occasions to stop it. As Cleo points out that wouldn't put meat on the plate and sadder stoll, the unsellable leftover in the freezer. Time to calla halt to this programme and focus resources on real foreign policy issues.

yes its either 66% or 75% cant recall exactly but it was more than half the votes anyway. which is why the IWC is always in a stalemate.

WTFjapan, thanks for the info! I didn't realise they needed 75% - though did know that Japan has a history of bribes - be it money, favours, women... for countries to vote with Japan. I don't understand why countries who are caught giving/accepting bribes still get to maintain their vote.

Ossan, research my bum. Little research done, freezers full of whale meat no one wants and exposure on how this "research" meat finds its way into grocery stories. Ego and pride. What a waste.

I say chop down a cherry blossom tree in Japan every time a whale is killed, well see if the Japanese take notice then.

Burn the cherry tree then use the ashes as kitty litter and see the reaction.

Norway killed 1285 mink whales last year. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_whales_are_killed_each_year Not only Japan is Hunting whales

The real purpose of the scientific Research is to see if whales can be Hunt without sending them to Extinction. Japan is researching for food.

Japan,,,keep hunting whales,,,5000 km away from your country,,, in which ,,, Tawainese will hunt your fish on the senkaku isles,, also CHINA!

That is why the world dont care about little problems about the islands,,,stop using loopholes and concentrate on matter that concern Japan,,,NOT LIES!!!

the time has come, to say fair's fair, the time has come to give it back Midnight Oil stop throwing bricks glass house aussies

Patrick not everyone in Japan supports the killing of whales and intelligent mammal. In Okinawa we watch and not kill them. The aliens might say "we need to harvest human populations to control the size of the herds". So why do we need to hunt whales? To appease a very very small part of the population? The Diet is broken because the people are not represented fairly with farmers in the countryside having as many representatives as a large city. Time to bring sanity back to Japan.

they need scientific data to conduct studies, reach conclusions and make recommendations,

Such as the new non-lethal acoustic tracking technology that Australia is developing. The biggest problem with the Australian method is of course that it doesn't put any meat in the freezers.

Change the treaty. Stop condeming japan for undertaking their legal right. People's anger is focused in the wrong direction. The source of the problem is the treaty, not the Japanese.

An extremely heated discussion again....

But again the same old arguments with a little twist due to the new technology emphasizing the preservation of whales.

Interesting that the articles placed here at this site uses Associated Press articles that seem to incite "arguments". Of course it is probably because of that kind of writing that there is a site and forum for discussion such as this. Reading competitive articles from the Times, Yomiuri and a few others that subscribe to other news sources seem to give some perspective as to how the articles are written by Associated Press.

But it is beneficial that the "sharing" of not necessarily the highly emotional and opinionated arguments, but the well researched and somewhat evaluated facts do ADD to the articles perspective, allowing individuals to research further or to make their own conclusions.

I for one, find this issue over discussed and without enough rational solutions being proposed.

Is there anyone that can offer solutions and not criticisms?

wtfjapanOct. 04, 2012 - 10:19PM JST Why hasn't this "loophole" been dealt with for once and for all?? because you need a 75% majority vote in the IWC >to make a change, but since Japan has bought and paid for many of the new and existing members in the IWC this >will be very difficult to do.

The IWC was created to regulate the whaling industry, To do so they need to manage whale populations. And to do that they need scientific data to conduct studies, reach conclusions and make recommendations,

Patrick, Yes money well spent. This is the Japanese way.

Australians hate you coming down to slaughter whales for pet food. What a barbaric practice. This practice is reducing your trade in Australia because our shores and harbours are often visited by many whales that appear to enjoy the interaction with us and come close and touch our boats and look us right in the eye. When a whale and its calf are in our harbours we flock to see them and they are on our evening news. Sometimes they stay for days at a time. We have names for some of the regular annual visitors that come to our quiet safe waters to show their babies. They make us happy and we forget our troubles for a while and we smile. Occasionally they get stranded on our beaches and we turn up in hundreds to to keep them covered from the hot sun and wet them down and wait for the high tide. Then we manually push them into deeper water where our boats guide them out to the sea. You can perhaps now understand our love for these creatures and abhorrence when we hear of your firing an explosive harpoon into their gentle hearts to feed your filthy dogs. If you can't afford to feed your dogs meat by-products from your butchers like us, then eat your dogs.... Then maybe you'll feel the loss and despair we feel when we hear of your gleeful slaughter. How much is this repulsive practice costing your nation. We are buying far less of your cars these days, because we won't feed the hand that drives the harpoon home.

yep it subsidised by the J Gov aka Japanese tax payer, last year the wasted 2.6billion yen just on security vessels to protect the whaling fleet, didnt do much good since they actually caught less whales than the year before. gotta love "Sea Shepherd" whats the ratio now every $1 Sea Shepherd spends whalers spend $50!? doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand that whaling is morally & finacially bankrupt.

I can hear an argument on an alien ship. "humans are intelligent animals we should not hunt and eat them as food." The response is "there are too many of them to count and this is for scientific purposes". So just because there are enough whales it is alright to kill them? Also I agree with Smith on something, need to check myself for a temperature.

I think the bottom line in this situation is to position oneself or country at the correct point in human history. Human beings continue to proliferate while whales, in comparison, continue to decline. By decline, I mean from levels that were sustained pre-commercial whale hunting.

wtfjapan your totally right. I saw a documentary about it (or was it in the movie 'the cove'?). Anyway, your spot on.

As much as I Love and Adore Japan including all aspects of the Japanese Culture (respectively) I have to admit that I am really not down with eating Whale Meat.

Moby Dick is just not my preference in the Appetzer Section of the Menu...

wtfjapanOct. 04, 2012 - 09:48PM JST anti-whalers uneducated!?

It is a question. Are you saying yes or no?

seem to me that you think those uneducated anti-whalers cant surely understand the complex cultural beliefs of the >Japanese LOL.

The cultural beliefs mean nothing. My eating steak might anger some Hindus. Do anti-wjhalers who harp on this issue realize that they are guilty of Cultural Imperialism? I love dogs and I won't stoop to harping on Koreans eating themWhy? Because I would bne imposing my cultural standards on eople who have their own,It does trake am educated mind to understand this.

no what those anti-whalers really hate other than the whaling itself,

Well there's 99.99% of the issue...Anti-Whalers hate whaking itself.

is that the pro-whalers must think they are of below average IQ to believe that its all scientific research BS, call it as >it is commercial whaling for making a profit.

What difference does that make to the whales? The only difference that makes is to the anti-whalers whjo can then claim Japan is breaking the Moratorium on Commerciasl Whaling, But what's to keep Japan from raising an objection to e Moratorium like Norway and Iceland, and just hunt them commercially? Would that save more whales? Would that make the anti-whalers "feel better"?

oh and those below average IQ pirates Sea Shepherd will cost the whaling industry in Japan so much that it will >never be able to recover the losses, so whos the dummy now LOL

The Sea Shepherd supporters are not below average IQ, they are, if still worshipoing their well-fed cowardly international fugitive leader,in dire need of psychiatric counselling.

wtfjapan, this IWC money for votes situation may be true, but if it is, where is Japan getting the cash to pay for it in this nasty economy? I really pray that it doesn't come out of my inflated tax bill!

Why hasn't this "loophole" been dealt with for once and for all?? because you need a 75% majority vote in the IWC to make a change, but since Japan has bought and paid for many of the new and existing members in the IWC this will be very difficult to do.

Why hasn't this "loophole" been dealt with for once and for all??

anti-whalers uneducated!? seem to me that you think those uneducated anti-whalers cant surely understand the complex cultural beliefs of the Japanese LOL. no what those anti-whalers really hate other than the whaling itself, is that the pro-whalers must think they are of below average IQ to believe that its all scientific research BS, call it as it is commercial whaling for making a profit. oh and those below average IQ pirates Sea Shepherd will cost the whaling industry in Japan so much that it will never be able to recover the losses, so whos the dummy now LOL

ihope2eatwhales, you've got it all wrong. Anti-whalers don't need to search for excuses. They're on the moral and factual high ground. No, you'll find that the ones futilely searching for excuses are those who pathetically try to justify the continuance of an archaic, barbaric, and rapidly fading industry, all in the name of "scientific research".

what an utterly biased article designed to lead the redaer into thinking that Japan hints "endangered Blue Whales" for reasearvh. No body does,, not Japan under IWC Scientific Permit nor Norway, Iceland or any country conducting commercial whaling in objection to he IWC mortoprium. Blue Whales are an endangered species. Or are anti-whalers so uneducated as toi think there is only one species of whale in the world?

whales are an endangered animal.

Are you sure that all the whales are endangered? If so it contradicts what Japan Whaling Association is saying. http://www.whaling.jp/qa.html#01_04 (This is only wirtten in Japanese.) They say the whales they are hunting is not endangered one and they try to minimise the number to kill.

English is not my mother tongue. I hope what I said above does not sound too harsh.

One of the reason why some Japanese people can't accept criticism might be because they feel inequity because of the difference of how anti-whaling countries treat Japan and other whaling countries.

I appreciate all of your comments. I am against hunting whales and dolphines because of emotional reason. I can't come up with a good explanation when people bring scientific things to justify killing dolphines and whales. It is confusing because what I hear from Japanese association/government and anti-whaling people are different. I believe there are many people like me in Japan.

The method does not seem helpful for serious research by Japan.

First, there is no problem to locate the minke whales, which Japan studies carefully. There are more than 500,000 minke whales. The problem is not to find them. The problem is there are so many it is hard to count them and know how much their numbers are changing each year. Acoustic method for blue whales has no purpose for it. If Australia wishes Japan to stop research, it should provide the data for minke whales, not just data for blue whales.

Second,

“The real-time passive acoustic tracking system was highly effective at picking up their low frequency calls from hundreds of kilometers of away, thus maximising our chance of locating them.”

OK. The Australian scientist may learn a blue whale is within a radius of hundreds of kilometers by their method. But such an area of hundreds of kilometres is a huge area. It is still hard to find a blue whale in such a wide space. It must be very expensive to chase a whale. Australia must be very very rich country. Japanese method is to just sail straight and find many minke whales. It's easy.

Third. If there are 5,000 blue whales in the Southern ocean, there is a blue whale within each area of a radius of hundreds of kilometres. Having acoustic system to say this obvious thing is no serious use.

Anti-whalers keep searching for excuses to end Japanese research and Japanese whaling. Anti-whalers need to find much better excuse.

One day, when whales and dolphins are truly extinct, future generations will never get to know these creatures. Whales and dolphins are not only intelligent, they possess an intelligence that is radically different from humans and mammals. Ultra sound technology, for example, was developed based on understanding how dolphins are able to "see" through bodies. There are still other highly unique abilities of these creatures, such as navigation, and future science can benefit by learning from them. Frankly, with so many available sources of protein, we simply have no right to take away their lives, but since humans are so selfish, use "selfish" reasons and logic to answer these people.

whales are an endangered animal

Actually, that is not entirely true. While many species of whale are endangered this is not the case for the Minki whale, which Japan mostly targets. However, Japan also hunts Humpback, Fin and Sei whales, which are endangered. My main objection to Japan's whaling is, it is unnecessary and the meat ends up in storage or in dog food.

ObviousDemon I like your post. Pigs, cows, chickens, etc are farmed for the purpose of eating. They are easily controlled and are far from being 'endangered'. And as we all know they provide nutrients, protein and other good stuff which are essential for our health. Dolphin meat is not healthy to eat and whales are an endangered animal. It would be a great loss to the world if these animals become extinct and if Japan were to blame for that... uh oh... big problems for Japan then. Also... I could be wrong but although say they kill whales for 'scientific research', why does whale meat end up in restaurants? If so, it's just an excuse. An excuse is a lie. People don't like being lied to.

I love japan but this side of it, i have disliked from day one!

I say chop down a cherry blossom tree in Japan every time a whale is killed, well see if the Japanese take notice then.

If you want to know why Australians are so against Japan's 'research' whaling have a look at this article about whales in Sydney harbor today.

http://m.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/look-whats-popped-up-at-manly-20121004-271rj.html

yeah right: "Very well said, l am just wondering what lame excuse the JWA will come up to continue their slaughter now"

What are you talking about? Killing whales is integral in Japanese research, for they have stated that if they can still kill them, there are still some left. How else could you ever prove there are whales still alive and swimming unless you kill them?

Sincere thanks to droves of J supporters in protecting the whales ! Japan has good hope to demolish the 'bad taste' culture by referendum ?

Japan will always find a reason to kill the whales no matter what research you throw in their faces. You need to impose sanctions or something more high level.

Can't remember but wasn't the amount of whale that didn't sell this year an atrocious amount ? heritage culture ?? See any other race of people or culture slaughtering this amazing creatures in the name of science ?? I mean who the F$@& cares how they are doing if you don't have the intent to go slaughter them for food. Leave em be !

Inuit ? Yes super small number , Norway ? Yes again small number ....the comparative is Japan has 145,000,000 people versus what ?? A tenth of those two cultures mentioned above ? Japan if left alone would hunt them until extinction if they weren't harassed by the rest of the world......to make sure their dog food supply was up so rich dumb a$& can strut them around at shopping malls .

I really don't understand why Japan tries so hard to have a good image and hunt whales and dolphins at the same time. Japan has donated money and human resources when there are natural disasters, even interviewing foreigners in Japan to have a better perspective of its own image. Now Japan really needs that good image to settle this Island issue. But guess what every time people see a Japanese ship they will immediately think of whale hunting ships. whenever I travel and mention that I live in Japan, the conversation veers to whales and dolphins. Most people don't know that dolphin hunt is confined to Wakayama and they don't know that there is no whale meat in every single home in the country. As long as public opinion is not relevant to the country or they can buy the needed public opinion (UN) I don't think there will be a significant change in whale hunting. But don't expect everybody to look at the disputed Island and be sympathetic towards Japan. For us, Japan is a very benevolent UN member. For most people around the world Japan means Toyota Sony and whale hunt!!!!

They won't make any excuse. They'll just scream that the treaty gives them the right to do it, so they can send another 6 tons of it to a dog food factory next year.

Killing for scientific purposes ....how much dissecting needs to be done on a dinner plate ???

Whale radar, please don't give this to the Japanese people they will use it to find the whales and kill them :(

“This research reinforces Australia’s commitment to non-lethal research of whales. This contrasts with Japan’s so-called ‘scientific whaling’ where the alleged research begins with a harpoon.

Very well said, l am just wondering what lame excuse the JWA will come up to continue their slaughter now