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Japan's coastal sea hunts threaten species with extinction: eco-group

25 Comments
By ELAINE KURTENBACH

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Get ready for apologists to claim this is an attack on Japanese culture instead of admitting the facts.

11 ( +17 / -6 )

A sorry state of affairs for the country most closely in harmony with nature (tongue firmly in cheek).

9 ( +13 / -4 )

Sorry, but they are not listening. Only when the last fish has been caught will they realize they can't eat money!

7 ( +10 / -3 )

I could not make out what this incoherent article was trying to say.

The small cetaceans are among a number of species facing severe declines in Japan. They include Japanese eels, a delicacy usually served roasted with a savory sauce over rice, and torafugu, or puffer fish.

Does this mean eels and puffer fish are cetaceans?

For the striped dolphin, once the mainstay of the industry but now endangered and disappearing from some areas, catches have dropped from over 1,800 in the 1980s to about 100. That is still four times the sustainable limit, the report said.

I am delightedly surprised to find an animal conservation group can agree on sustainable catch limits of dolphins. I want to learn how they concluded 25 catches a year is sustainable in the water near Japan.

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

they don't care.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

CH3CHO: "I am delightedly surprised to find an animal conservation group can agree on sustainable catch limits of dolphins."

Would be nice if Japan could, too.

"I could not make out what this incoherent article was trying to say."

It's those gosh darn blinders again!

2 ( +7 / -5 )

The excuse of "we are an island country with limited food resources" is no longer valid. Join TPP and start importing more cheap food.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

The only thing this has to do with is pride, the more they are told not to do it the more they will dig their heels in. When it was bluefin tuna they lobbied the ministries of the poorer countries and ran a national media campaign of how their culture was under siege. Japan has to realize that the ocean resources do not belong to them, but unfortunately the general myopic and insular mindset extends to their right to everything in international waters. How would the foreigners even apprecitate the fish anyway

5 ( +6 / -1 )

If you would round up the stats of seafood caught(all nations) but consumed in Japan it would be incredibly obscene.

I like seafood as much as anyone but it is truly disgusting watching Japan mow down tuna, squid, octopus, eel, fugu, whale stocks world wide & the average person on the street is incredibly clueless as to the affect Japanese have on ocean/seas worldwide.

Like one poster said they just DO NOT CARE!

As for conservation, totally a foreign concept the locals will never understand

5 ( +6 / -1 )

CH3CHO:

Does this mean eels and puffer fish are cetaceans?

No, it means that

eels, a delicacy usually served roasted with a savory sauce over rice, and torafugu, or puffer fish

are

among a number of species facing severe declines in Japan.

Nothing remotely incoherent about it.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Based (only) on my 10 years of interaction with all sorts of Japanese people, and observing Japan's behaviour on a national scale, I believe that most Japanese people know almost nothing about nature, and care even less.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

@taiko666

I completely agree with you, I came to think the same after 11 years here. Not only they don't have any clue about serious environmental issues and what nature really is, for them nature is Mt Fuji and that's it, but also they have little considerations for animals in general besides the pets that they use like toys. They really lack serious understanding for what life really means outside the scope of the limited world of Japan and japanese.

The education system under the pressure of big lobbies that don't want people to develop a sense for nature preservation doesn't educate people at all about issues related to pollution, environment preservation and preservation of animal species. The result is completely disinformed people that think and say shamelessly that japanese live in harmony with nature or this kind of stupidity. And whenever they hear someone rising the issue of Japan and environment, they get defensive, with the usual Japan culture crap as an excuse. They are brain washed to say the same argument over and over.

The result is a country of ignorant people that don't understand the world they are living in. They are educated to prioritize money making at all cost, they don't care about the bad consequences of their actions, they are educated to pretend that they don't exist.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

taiko666,

I believe that most Japanese people know almost nothing about nature, and care even less.

I think you could say that first part about most people everywhere. The second part is possibly true, but really subjective. E.g. whether eating cetaceans per se is a "nature" or "environment" issue depends on who you ask. A lot of people (everywhere) don't give a hoot about sustainable harvests of natural resources. But other people think even suggesting "sustainable harvests of cetaceans" is blasphemy, and we could probably clump the well-meaning folks at EIA in that category.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Like those comments about the Japanese and nature. They see cherry blossoms once a year and believe Mt. Fuji is a god (or rubbish dump) and call themselves naturalists.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I have been involved with boats and fishing for years now. Fishing around Japanese people sickens me. Every place I go to is being systematically raped by fishing trawlers and other commercial fishing. You can be anchored in the middle of nowhere, but be surrounded by traps and nets galore. I am surprised that they leave anything for recreational fishermen - it must surely only be because they missed a few that there are any for other people to catch. The recreational fisherman is not much better though. There is no thought of sustainable recreational fishing or that there needs to be some thought put into the process if there are to be any fish in the future. Size limits are non existent - in fact the smaller fish are perfect pan size fish. Bigger fish are non existent as they are all caught when they are small... Bag limits are also non existent, but are rarely reached anyway. Japanese fishing disgusts me. With all the fish farm technologies they have, they should be able to do things a lot better.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

smithinjapanOct. 31, 2013 - 03:38PM JST Get ready for apologists to claim this is an attack on Japanese culture instead of admitting the facts.

LOL. Yes it is smith. Can you understand why? This organization while making very rational points with buzzwords like "sustainability" and "extinction" fails to present the scientific data, i.e; what exactly is the population of each species both globally and coastal in Japan, what is the population trend, without which "sustainability" becomes an academic concept rather than an applicable goal. Of course all natural resources must be sustainably harvested but to do so requires the data to determine those levels. You say "admitting the facts" but it is up to the EIA who is making these charges to submit the "facts", the data that would support their position.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

Jobs for the boys...Apparently the whaling research body is mostly made up of ex politicians and I'm sure they would rather see the whales extinct than their own jobs! But then again if I was a Dolhin I wouldn't want to live in radioactive waters off Fukushima that don't exist!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@OssanAmerica

So in the absence of data which would satisfy you and the Japanese, the only sensible option is to take as much as you like from the oceans?

Japan used to have native sea lions, but the fishermen made short work of them. Even with irrefutable data, the Japanese will still skweem and skweem "our culture!!!" and do exactly what it wants, bless its little cotton socks.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

@Get real

Northing to do with language. We all know they're in the dictionary. My friends just didn't know what they were. Do you understand this difference?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

So where is this "scientific data & report" they've been collecting for the past 20 years except that "cetaceans taste good". The Japanese don't do anything for conservation and the minute their food source is depleted, they think it's okay to start overfishing & over hunting again in some other countries' back yard or back waters so to speak. Well to those countries that don't hunt cetaceans it's not "traditional" it's just offensive.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

CoconutE3Nov. 01, 2013 - 01:19AM JST So where is this "scientific data & report" they've been collecting for the past 20 years except that "cetaceans taste >good".

Small cetaceans and large cetaceans are completely different. Japan conducts large cetacean research and their data is submitted to the IWC Scientific committee as required under IWC Article VIII. How cetaceans "taste" is not included in the research goals. Small cetacean research if conducted in Japanese coastal waters would be conducted by the Japanese fisheries and would provide the basis of determining populations, trends and sustainable levels. This article simply says that an organization is claiming unsustainability, but there is no mention of any data to support this claim.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

There are 943,000 results in Google for "Environmental Investigation Agency eco terrorists," including stories on an ongoing FBI investigation.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I know what you mean about the naming system. Try and give a lecture on crocodilians when the only word for crocodile/alligator etc is わに.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@taiko666: Your friends are literally dumber than AKB48 idols

2 ( +2 / -0 )

CoconutE3Nov. 01, 2013 - 01:19AM JST

So where is this "scientific data & report" they've been collecting for the past 20 years except that "cetaceans taste good".

Scientific research means measurement of number, age distribution and reproductive speed of whales. After 20 years of research, we have better understanding of those factors of Minke whales, so that we can determine the maximum yield for whaling when commercial whaling restarts. We have to keep updating those factors, too.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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