Whaling in Japan

The Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) opened its annual five-day meeting in Geneva in November 2017 with the main topic being « Whaling in Japan ». 

The problematic ban.

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission finally banned almost all whales hunting, dealing a fatal blow to the whaling industry. Unfortunately, in many cases, it was nearly too late. Over the past 30 years, many whale species have been able to recover, but some are still vulnerable, and risk extinction. 

Nowadays, whale hunting is allowed in two categories:

• The cultural hunt. For some communities, whale hunting is part of their culture. For these peoples, hunting isn’t part of an industry, but instead, part of their survival. 

• Hunting for research. Unfortunately, a few countries are still hunting in the name of scientific research. However, in the meantime, no clear research was conducted. Namely, there has been no significant advancement in the understanding of the whale, or new discoveries.

Japan’s case

Japan is using the « hunting for research » to justify their whales hunting. They are killing 134 sei whales annually in the name of the science, but in the meantime no advancement in the understanding of whales were made, but whales meat can be seen in the open market. 

Japanese scientifics emphasized on the fact that only lethal research can help to understand the habits of the whales, the age etc. They are justifying the whales meat on the open market by saying that the displayed meat are actually by-products of the research. They are selling it to not waste anything related to the research. The problem is that these meats are stockpiled because less and less people are eating whale meat and it is also high in mercury which makes the meat unhealthy and dangerous.

Also they started to hunt for a new mother ship in 2018 to replace the used one, showing that they won’t stop the whaling anytime soon and actually defying the ban and the ecologists. It is also said that they are purchasing a new one that will be able to flee faster from the Australian authorities and the ecologists.

(Photo from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/23/japan-to-replace-whaling-mother-ship-in-sign-hunts-will-go-on. Photograph: Reuter )

Decision of the meeting in Genova.

The committee decided to send a team to Japan to determine whether or not the whaling is for scientific research. They decided to postpone the decision of claiming or not if the hunting is actually a commercial hunting being disguised as a scientific research.

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