yelspal comments

Why the Japanese government is still subsidising whaling. I thought they were supposed to be in debt - how much more money are they going to spend pandering to a few people dependent on a dead industry.

Weigh up the direct costs of the operation of the whaling fleet, some tens of millions USD a year I understand. Representation at IWC and other bodies, "donating" more millions as "aid" to small countries with IWC voting rights. Now they have to pay to bring conservationists to trial (to let them go) and policing the nutters outside the courthouse.

Add the indirect cost of the damage to Japan's international reputation with the public and governments of otherwise friendly trading partners.

Where's the return on Japan's investment?

It can't be the profit margin on a few thousand whales a year. Votes? Previously, obviously, but I think unlikely that the new government is as reliant on the rabid vote. There must be more pressing concerns to the public - like a bankrupt economy for example.

That barbaric whaling continues against all economic sense by a country already deep in the red is just plain stupid. I hear the public service in Japan is conservative, entrenched and difficult to manage. Sounds like sooner or later someone is going to have to grow a pair though - and not just on whaling.

If you were just doing your job and sustained eye and skin burn injury because some one was shooting glass bottles filled with butryic acid from a launcher on a zodiac commando-style, would you be passionate about the outcome of this case?

Um - no - I'd probably stop following most news items. Except the world cup perhaps. Although that would depend if I could still see. I could always listen on the radio I suppose.

Better question might be why are the pro-whalers so disappointed - after all as Ossan points out. "Bethune was never charged with being anti-whaling, not even for protesting". He was found guilty on all counts - and given the sentence he deserved. Nothing.

Or are pro-whalers just also really passionate about trespass.

Good result for Peter - he can get home to his children and get on with doing something else - sans SSCS and wife. If anyone as dumped me as publicly as they did, and at such a juncture, I'd have nothing to do with them ever again.

Good result for Japan - this way it goes away as quietly as is possible at this point. Must be a relief - last thing the government would have wanted would be a steep sentence.

SSCS comes out of this looking like duckheads for pretending not to know he had the bow with him and dumping him in middle of trial. Came across as expedient and unprincipled whether they’re gaming the system on Pete’s behalf or not.

Whalers come out looking like duckheads because there's no other way they can look really. This, and the rest of the protest this year, has attracted a lot of scrutiny - which it doesn’t bear well. It is going to continue to play out on TV for a long time yet. Now, seeing what publicity, even fame, boarding a ship can bring - how many are they going to have to arrest next year?

The morons calling for excessive jail time and/or death penalty, like whalers, just cannot come out of anything looking good. Right-wing nutjobs are right-wing nutjobs wherever in the world they fester - however the association is telling and it clarifies the drivers behind Japan's intransigence on this issue.

@Ossan

I think we established that they aren't being killed to "torture" them.

Oh dear - still a bit confused after all.

I think that attempting to push an anti-whaling agenda on the basis that whaling causes "more suffering" than all the other animals we kill for food is nonsense. The ONLY rationale in my book to limit or stop whaling is sustainability numbers

Sorry but I don't think a genade tipped harpoon exploding in he head is an awful lot of suffering.

Well I 100% disagree - those grounds are more than enough to me to ban whaling even with all other arguments . Any and all other methods that cause unnecessary suffering as well. Japan is not alone with their heads in the sand – mulesing in Australia, mink industry in Russia, bear bile in Korea, gin traps anywhere – all disgusting and shameful practices.

does not give any indication of the condition of hearts, lungs, brains, etc

What for? Frying? Those guys on deck are not scientists Ossan - they are butchers. If the state of Japanese scientific prowess is so abysmally low that they have to kill 1000 specimens to draw some conclusion about overall population health - you need new scientists.

The IWC Scientific Committee has been receiving research papers from the Japanese researchb whaling program year after year. Never have they deounced them as "bogus"

The IWC has repeatedly, year after year after year, requested Japan to cease lethal research. Not that highly valued then. It is not necessary. Yip - this ones good, yip - this one's good, yip - this one's good. All good - can we kill more now?

Research is NOT the point of the whaling and everybody knows it except a few PR hacks and ultra-nationalists that are still smarting a bit.

First thing you've posted I agree with :-)

I've never debated Japan has a history of whaling - many countries have a tradition of whaling hence the decimation of whale populations worldwide. The difference is that almost all of them have stopped.

I find it absurd to argue that all ways of slaughtering animals for food are equally cruel when it is blindingly obvious that some animals are killed in far more distress and pain than others. There are laws against animal cruelty, reflecting societal antipathy to unnecessary or gratuitous pain inflicted on animals, in many countries - even, I expect, Japan although it would be true hypocrisy to outlaw it and subsidise it at the same time.

The "scientific research" is a bogus excuse to try and keep the industry alive orchestrated by the tiny, tiny sector of Japan that depend on it. I suspect if the Japanese government had known how vast the drain on a steadily more bankrupt economy was going to be - they'd have bitten the bullet in 1979. Instead it has now become a point of honor for nationalists and admitting the research is secondary to the commercial operation affords no honorable escape for a buck-passing Fishing Ministry. Like other areas of the economy - it is in a big hole and still digging.

Research is NOT the point of the whaling and everybody knows it except a few PR hacks and ultra-nationalists that are still smarting a bit.

Contrary to popular belief, whale meat is not a delicacy in Japan. Many Japanese dislike the taste and older Japanese are reminded of the post-World War II period when whale meat was one of the few economical sources of protein.

http://facts-about-japan.com/interesting.html

ha ha ha

Although whaling is banned by the IWC, Japan still hunts whales under the premise of "research". The harvested whale meat ends up in restaurants and supermarkets.

http://facts-about-japan.com/interesting.html

Ossan - Arrestpaul. OK - it was me that used the word torture in exactly the sense Cleo points out. Once again it seems to me you are just avoiding the point. Whales suffer terribly, and it is drawn out. More than farmed cattle. Not still confused I hope?

The grenade harpoons you talk about would damage too much of the meat if they were powerful enough to kill them immediately so are set to incapacitate - just slow down enough that they can be winched up a ramp. It is disgusting and put whalers are in the same basket as the people that kill mink with red-hot pokers to avoid marring the skins.

The ends (gee - that "crucial" research) do not justify the means.

Osaan - You might personally believe that no animal can be killed humanely but your point seems to be that therefore it's OK to stand by while any animal is tortured to death cos that just "reality".

On top of that I believe whales suffer more that that as they're way bigger - imagine harpooning an elephant and then quadruple it+. They are what remains of a key part of the ocean eco-system that directly affects where I live as well as Australia and many other countries, and they are of a higher order of intelligence and have stronger familial and social societal bonds than most species.

Cleo - totally agree. It has to be a key part of a genuine culture - otherwise is just a loophole, and we all know what whalers do with loopholes.

arrestpaul - well I'm anti-whaling, and anti-zealotry - fanaticism of any sort. As above, I don't think IWC or anyone should prevent traditional communities hunting for much needed food and blubber just because they're lumped in with large scale commercial operations. Also as above, I think whales suffer tremendously in both large and small scale hunting; they are big, strong and hard to kill - it often very drawn out. So when communities urbanise - as per cleo's posts - they should cease the hunting.

If IWC ends and nations set their own limits (as occurs annually in 3 cases at the moment) - those noations will face the same resistance they face now - they just won't have the regulatory fig leaves they hide behind at the moment.

Hi Zenny - Are they? Those crazy guys!

Indigenous whaling is a separate issue to commercial whaling. Personally, the animals are probably killed in an equally inhumane manner so I'd be happy enough if it ended on that score.But I think peoples that choose a traditional native lifestyle, and/or that hunt as part of an animistic belief system, should be left alone as long as overall populations are not threatened. I see no link to Japan's activity though?

arrestpaul, ossan - whatever you do - avoid the point of keito's posts.

Is it because there are no parallels to be drawn between indigenous small scale coastal hunting and a modern(ish) factory fleet operating half an ocean away?

Find another straw to clutch.

Hi Okikibi. Don't forget the billions spent propping up the industry itself. Those whaling forays to the Southern Ocean cost Japan lots of money, not just respect. I am amazed to read of the debt the Japanese government is in - yet it cannot pull out of such wasteful spending.

ha ha ha - so Japan pretends it's harvesting whales to do research in order to exploit a loophole in the rules of an organisation which then asks for the "research" to stop because it's an obvious farce - and to you that's PROOF that it was research after all. I'm getting dizzy.

Spin till you drop buddy - Japan agreed to a whaling moratorium but instead whales commercially under the guise of research. Two-faced, weak and nobody is falling for it.

I must be talking to the last two people on earth that think Japanese whaling is for research.

However I think - deep down - in your heart of hearts you might just have just a nagging suspicion that it is at least conceivable that Kyodo Senpaku might have an ulterior motive.

Also - nice quote above - couldn't find that one - but found these just lying around...

*The commission made note of the fact that the catches took place in the IWC established Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and that improving management of whaling in a sanctuary is unnecessary. The 2007-1 resolution on JARPA is one of several calling on Japan by majority vote to suspend its lethal research

In 2005 and 2007 the commission passed resolutions by majority urging Japan to stop all lethal research in JARPA II -

In 2000, 2001 and 2003 more resolutions were passed by the IWC urging Japan to cease issuing special permits for whaling and limit research to non-lethal methods

The International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee has repeatedly expressed concern for the objectives and results obtained by the ICR. In a resolution in 2007, the IWC noted that "none of the goals of JARPA 1 had been reached, and that the results of the JARPA 1 [Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic] programme are not required for management under the RMP [Revised Management Procedure]" and called upon the Japanese government "to address the 31 recommendations listed in [the Scientific Committee's JARPA 1 report] to the satisfaction of the Scientific Committee" and "to suspend indefinitely the lethal aspects of JARPA II conducted within the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary"*

Funny way to show support for credible, sorry "crucial" research - by repeatedly calling for it to cease.

ha ha dreamland - even Paul'd put out to save the whales - any takers Fisheries Agency of Japan?

Even with caps lock the "international law of the sea" is still just a convention agreed upon between nations. But if NK withdraws from it - does Japan's attitude to their territorial waters change? Not really judging from your rather militaristic scenario above.

Japan can withdraw from the IWC, disband it, pretend to be a functioning member of it - whatever it likes; if whaling ships come down to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary they will be protested. Japan's "right" to whale will be challenged. If 100 people see a garden - and one man sees a toilet - he won't be crapping in peace.

Perhaps the IWC should keep the scientific whaling rule - just prohibit the sale of the meat. I have a funny feeling the urgent need to go all the way down to the Antarctic and kill a thousand whales would evaporate pretty quickly.

So if North Korea quits the UN - would you be OK with their fishing boats in Tokyo Bay?

I think not. And even if you are - lots of other people would not agree with you.

Japan can withdraw from the IWC; in fact it would be vastly less hypocritical to do so. But, it will not mean the organisations and nations that support the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and whale conservation in general are going to quietly walk away and forget about it.

Why should North Korea recognise Japan's "EEZ". Who gave Japan those "rights". Sounds a bit like unacceptable international pressure and an attack on North Korea's traditional right to do whatever the it likes.

Japan's "scientific research" is a sham. It has zero credibility at all in scientific circles. Some people that seem to have nothing to do except hang around and post the same apologist spin verbatim every 3rd post or so. But seriously, unless you're extremely gullible, or paid, the notion that Japan is bravely carrying on vital research to preserve whale populations for future generations is absurd.

I think Japan should be allowed to kill as many whales as it likes - within Japan's territorial waters. If it is going to venture out in to international waters - it can abide by international rules. What if North Korean (eg) fishing boats surrounded Japan's waters ignored all quota and just pulled whatever they liked out of the sea? You'd be OK with that as long as North Korea had formally withdrawn from any agreements?

members like Japan have been good at following the moratorium

Japan has been lousy at following the moratorium - they signed it and ignored it by keeping whaling. Two-faced and weak. Anybody that thinks Japan's annual hunt is a research exercise is either totally gullible or paid.

Question 3: Are you suggesting that Japan send research ships to Antarctica and elsewhere for only commercial whaling?

That has to be a joke right?

Can't you SamuraiBlue? Really. You really can't understand why some people try to bend things in their favour? You must find the world a bewildering place indeed.

Makoto Ito, managing director of Kyodo Senpaku Co, the company that runs the annual Antarctic hunt, said he didn’t think they should be ended, because “we need to collect more data.”

Ha - what a joke.

Japan can whale in their own waters - I don't really like that way it is done but accept that some countries just take longer to grow up than others. Also Japan has fished out it's seas - there is precious little environment to save.

Australia however does have a legitimate interest in SOS waters. It directly affects their own territorial waters as they are all part of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean - which is under pressure. Removing the large mammals affects the whole system - so targeting the last remaining significant population in that ecological niche makes zero sense.

So I too call for the resumption of commercial whaling within territorial waters - in return for renunciation of all "scientific" whaling and any whaling in the Southern Oceans at all.

Go Australia.

Go Germany. Iceland can like it or lump it. I don't have the same passion about Iceland's whaling as I do about Japan's because while they rape their own seas - they don't come down to my part of the world and do it.

However, if IWC endorse it - and Iceland come a-whaling down my way - they'd better bring their own LRADs and more.