The Kangei Maru is seen sailing off the coast of Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on Friday, March 29, 2024. (The Yomiuri Shimbun)
Inexplicably, considering the fact that there is almost zero demand for whale meat by the general public in Japan and throughout the world, the construction of a brand new whaling fleet “mother ship,” Kangei Maru, was just completed. Owned by Kyodo Senpaku Co., it was reported in The Japan News that it has the capacity to “haul up 70-ton fin whales, two to three times larger than Bryde’s and sei whales loaded by the Nisshin Maru, because its slipway has a shallower slope than the predecessor’s.” The Nisshin Maru was decommissioned last November (2023) and the Kangei Maru is meant to replace it.
The Nisshin Maru, infamously, processed 17,072 whales caught by “catcher boats” since 1991. Some of the whales were processed ostensively for “research” purposes and others for commercial purposes, but, regardless of the stated purpose, the vast majority of the processed catch ended up in markets. While it plied the Southern Ocean, it was occasionally rammed by the far smaller Sea Shepherd anti-whaling vessels in a David and Goliath struggle over the protection vs. the slaughter of these majestic creatures far from Japan’s shores.
Tired of pretending to slaughter whales for “research” purposes, and always getting criticized by the international community for engaging in a practice most of the rest of the world considered to be barbaric, Japan quit its membership in the International Whaling Commission in 2019 and resumed the undisguised and unapologetic commercial exploitation of whales.
The replacement of Nisshin Maru with the larger capacity Kangei Maru shows Japan’s resolve to go against the prevailing world sentiment, the best interests of Japanese tax payers who will be subsidizing these expensive and wasteful whaling operations, and the protests of environmentalists and animal rights activists.
The president of Kyodo Senpaku, the owners of Kangei Maru, was quoted as saying, apparently without irony that “It’s important to protect marine resources, and we are the ones responsible for that,” He was further quoted as saying: “I believe that continuing (whaling) will benefit both Japan and the world.” He didn’t say how Japan or the world would benefit nor whether whales themselves would stand to benefit from these developments.
Jiji Press. (2024, March 30). Whaling Mother ship built in Japan for 1st time in 73 years. The Japan News. https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20240330-177654/
