Japanese kill 440 minke whales

The Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru, three whale catcher boats and one sighting boat returned from the Antarctic with 440 minke whales

April 9, 1998
Web posted at: 5:06 p.m. EDT (2106 GMT)

From Environmental News Network Staff

(ENN) -- During a scientific whaling study, Japan hunted down 440 minke whales in an Antarctic sanctuary despite international calls to end whaling for scientific research, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru, three whale catcher boats and one sighting boat returned from the Antarctic Wednesday with 440 minke whales in their 10th successive season of "scientific research whaling." The whole Southern Ocean was declared a sanctuary for whales in 1994 by the International Whaling Commission, but while it can criticize, the IWC is powerless to stop Japan's research whaling.

"The IWC decided almost unanimously four years ago that the Southern Ocean should be a whale sanctuary," said Cassandra Phillips, WWF's coordinator for whales and the Antarctic, "and yet Japan persists in defying world opinion. This lethal research whaling must be halted now."

The IWC's Scientific Committee has said that the research whaling does not provide any information that is needed for the management of whaling, and the IWC passed a strongly worded resolution at its last meeting, October 1997 in Monaco, calling on Japan to end the whaling. Japan is using a legal loophole in the Whaling Convention that permits countries to undertake scientific research in spite of the sanctuary and the global moratorium on commercial whaling, according to WWF.

At the 1997 IWC meeting in Monaco, Ireland tabled a package of proposals designed to end the deadlock in the IWC. The package included a phase-out of Japan's research whaling, but little progress has been made so far in reaching agreement on the proposals. They will be debated again at the IWC's 50th Meeting, to be held May 16-20 in Oman.

The meat from the research whaling will be sold on the open market in Japan, where whale meat fetches more than 10 times the price of pork or beef, according to WWF. Some of it is destined to be served at school lunches to foster the taste for whale meat among children. The whaling ships will be open to the public for two days next week, and will set off again in the summer to hunt for minkes in the North Pacific.

If there is no agreement in the IWC on the Irish proposals, the Japanese whaling fleet will once again sail for the Antarctic to hunt another 440 minke whales at the start of the next season in December.

Copyright 1998, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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• Illegal whale meat trade called 'too easy'
  
• Opposition to whaling on the decline
  
• Endangered marine species imperiled, group says
  

Related sites:

• World Wide Fund - Global Network
  
• Whales in the Wild
  
• Endangered Seas Campaign
  

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