2010-01-28

Japanese Researcher Calls For End To Whaling

In a break with the once monolithic stand on whaling, a leading Japanese researcher is calling for an end to Japan's whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.  In an editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, Professor Shohei Yonemoto said that the majority opinion of the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee had made it clear that the results of Japan's research could not justify whaling in the Antarctic, and that most of the papers Japanese whale researchers have published about the hunt "contain findings that can be obtained without killing whales."

Since Japan began its so-called research activities in the Antarctic in the late 1980s, it has killed thousands of whales.  Yonemoto, a professor of global environmental policy at the university of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, points out that Japan's Southern Ocean whaling fleet is highly subsidised, at the same time that whale meat stockpiles continue to grow.

For the full editorial, click here: Asahi Shimbun

For more on the increasing stockpiles of whale meat, and government subsidies to the whaling industry, see the WDCS/WWF report Sink or Swim