Greenpeace anger as Japan prepares for whale-killing
The Times
22 December 1987
David Watts
Police took a 50ft inflatable whale into custody yesterday - the centrepiece of a Greenpeace demonstration against a new Japanese whaling expedition due to begin later this week.
Six of the artificial mammal's minders, who rallied in Yokohama harbour on dinghies around the whaler Nishin Maru 3, were picked up by the Maritime Safety Agency for questioning. Their leader, Miss Anne Dingwall, has been ordered to report to police again today.
The Nishin Maru is leaving for a three-month cruise to kill 300 mink whales for "scientific" purposes Japan's continuation of what Greenpeace calls "a thinly veiled attempt to skirt the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling", which "serves no legitimate scientific purpose", was strongly criticized at last week's meeting of the IWC science committee in Cambridge.
The plan itself was a pale version of a proposal rejected in June, under which Japan would have killed 825 minke and 50 sperm whales. In the 16-strong committee, only Japan and Iceland unequivocally supported continued killing of minke whales by Tokyo.
Under American pressure, Japan belatedly observed the 1982 IWC moratorium by ending commercial whaling in the Antarctic last March. Coastal whaling is due to end next year, but Japan insists on the need to kill the minkes to study mortality, birth rates and age distribution.
The anti-whaling pressure has become symbolic, to some Japanese, of foreign countries trying to force the country to do things against its will and in violation of its culture.
Professor Syoiti Tanaka, Japan's foremost fisheries statistician, says he can get a clear picture from two culls four years apart. His critics fault his methodology as an unscientific, and say the whole thing could be calculated with a few weeks' computer time.
Besides, says Greenpeace, Japan is only intent on proving that there are plenty of minke for it to kill. Japanese whalers claim that there are more than 440,000 minke in the southern seas.
The Government is, if anything, emboldened by all the criticism. Mr Takashi Sato, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, has said that the voyage will go ahead despite US threats to curtail Japanese fishing rights in its territorial waters.
Yesterday, he was closeted with Japanese scientists just back from the Cambridge meeting, and the Fisheries Agency said it would not seek approval for the voyage from the US but rather inform Washington once it starts.
Mr Neville Williams, of Greenpeace, said: "The minke is the only species of whale that man hasn't succeeded in destroying. We're tired of listening to Japan's arguments. None of them hold up. Japan's not a Third World country that needs the protein. After the war they needed to eat whale to keep body and soul together, but now it's an exotic delicacy."
The industry in Japan now employs fewer than a thousand, with about 100 related factories employing 3,600 people. Processing of whale products has fallen from 127,000 tonnes in 1975 to approximately 15,000 tonnes this year.
And the scarcity value of the meat has doubled wholesale values and pushed up prices in Tokyo's two whale restaurants. Whale is still available in Tokyo if you like the taste of the mammal - a cross between meat and fish. Whale sashimi, whale tongue and whale steak costs about ú4 a serving. The choicest parts from the tail sell at ú50 per lb.
