Japan continues to violate the 2014 ruling of the International Court of Justice

This is a summary of two stories about the 2017 Whale Hunt by Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean. One of them was a Reuters wire service story that ran in the Japan Times online paper just after the Japanese whaling fleet set off from Shimonoseki (in November). It reported how the Australian Prime Minister was “deeply disappointed” in Japan’s continued whaling operations. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull brought up the issue with Shinzo Abe when they met in Sydney during a January 2017 meeting. The Australian Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, reminded everyone that Japan’s pretext for its continued whaling was fraudulent because “It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them.”

Reuters. (2017, January 16). Australia disappointed by Japan’s whale hunt in Southern Ocean. Japan Times. Retrieved June 8, 2017, from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/16/national/politics-diplomacy/australia-disappointed-japans-whale-hunt-southern-ocean/#.WTjFrsklGRs

The second article came from a French wire service called Agence France-Presse. It reported on the return of the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean to Shimonoseki after it caught 333 minke whales which was in violation of a worldwide moratorium (since 1986) on catching whales and was strongly opposed by Australia and New Zealand.

Agence France-Presse. (2017, March 31). Japan kills more than 300 whales in annual Antarctic hunt. The Guardian. Retrieved June 8, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/31/japan-kills-whales-annual-antarctic-hunt

MacArthur encouraged Japanese to do large-scale whaling

Wingfield-Hayes, R. (2016, February 8). Japan and the whale. Retrieved June 01, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749

This BBC article by Wingfield-Hayes is excellent in that it puts Japanese whaling in historical and cultural perspective, but it also brings up some interesting facts which few people are aware of. One thing I learned from the article was that although Japan had done small scale COASTAL whaling for centuries, it was General Douglas MacAuthur who, after the 2nd World War, encouraged Japan to transform two gigantic US Navy tankers into factory ships that were capable of sailing to the Southern Ocean to catch whales. From the end of the war until the mid 1960s whale meat was the main source of meat that was eaten in Japan. According to the article at “its peak in 1964 Japan killed more than 24,000 whales in one year.”

So, whaling did play an important role in feeding a hungry Japan after the War. The problem is that these days whaling does not provide any economic or nutritional benefit to Japan. On the contrary, the Japanese taxpayer subsidies almost the full cost of the so-called research whaling that continues to be done. Unlike the coastal whaling that is truly traditional in Japan and goes back hundreds of years, the minke and fin whales caught in the Southern Ocean (Antartica) is done in a very non-traditional way…using factory ships and harpoon cannons mounted on the bows. Some of the whales caught, such as the fin whale, are on CITES endangered species list of animals that are banned for hunting and commerce.

Way does Japan continue to send ships half-way around the world to slaughter whales? The article provides interesting insight into this question. Politicians representing local areas in Japan that are still involved in whaling, such as Ishinomaki and Taiji, try to protect their local industries in order to get votes. In addition, there are government bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries whose job it is to promote whaling and make research and expedition plans. They do not want to lose their budget or personnel. So, whaling is continuing not mainly for patriotic or cultural reasons, but for political and boring bureaucratic ones.

Questions about whaling

For homework, I asked you and your partner to come up with 30 questions about your controversial issue. Here are some questions that I came up with about my issue:

• How far back does whaling go in Japan? Is it really a part of the Japanese "cultural fabric"
• Do some communities in the world need to do whaling in order to survive?
• If countries such as the US and Portugal have abandoned whaling, despite having done it for hundreds of years, why has Japan found it so difficult to stop whaling?
• Historically, which countries in the world have engaged in whaling?
• Have whales always been caught as a food source or for other reasons?
• Is whale meat fit for human consumption or is it contaminated with mercury, as some scientists claim?
• Does the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries really believe that it's necessary to kill whales in order to know how many of them there are?
• What is the International Whaling Commission and what is its function?
• How many kinds of whales are there in the world? Which ones are threatened or endanger of extinction?
• Is the claim of the Japanese government that whales are partly responsible for the falling catches of fish (because the whales are eating them) justified?
• Is killing whales for food the same as killing cows for food?
• Is it economically profitable to catch whales?
• How much damage to Japan's image, and to the economy, has its whaling program caused?
• What sort of PR has the Japanese government (esp. the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) done to justify their insistence to continue whaling?
• Australia is especially adamant that Japan stop its "research whaling" in the southern ocean. Why is that?
• What sort of actions have environmental (or animal rights) groups taken against countries that still engage in whaling?
• Are extreme actions, such as those by the group Sea Shepherd against Japanese whaling vessels, ever justified?
• Is it hypocritical to eat meat but object to the slaughter (harvesting?) of whales?
• Which whale species have become extinct and did commercial whaling cause their extinction?
• Besides whaling, in what other ways are whales threatened?
• Should we take into account the intelligence of whales when we consider whether or not they should be slaughtered?
• Do whales ever attack humans and, if so, why?

Why is Japan so determined to continue whaling

You may have heard that at the end of March the International Court of Justice demanded that Japan stop its so-called "research whaling" since the court determined that the killing of whales by Japan was not being done for any sort of sound scientific reasons, but was really just commercial whaling in disguise. The Australian government, with the backing of New Zealand brought the case to the International Court. They consider it a big victory. The Japanese government had said they would abide by the ruling and they did; their whaling ships in the Southern Ocean made their way back to Japan. However, CNN reported late last month that Japan ships would resume "research whaling" in the Northwest Pacific. Even though this is a much smaller whaling program, they are still doing what the international Court of Justice ruled against. I was astonished to read on CNN's website that the Asahi Shimbun took a poll and found that 60% of people they questioned believed that "research whaling should continue." Only 23% said the whale hunt shouldn't be carried on anymore. Do so many Japanese really believe that the research whaling is legitimate? Even when the International Court found that it had no basis in science. I'm confused by this. I would like to see the kinds of questions the Asahi Shimbun asked its readers. I suspect that the questions were worded in a biased way.

Wakatsuki, Y., & Brown, S. (2014, April 25). Japanese whaling fleet set to sail despite recent ruling. . Retrieved May 8, 2014, from http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/24/world/asia/japan-whaling/

Illustrating "abduction": GIANT SQUID vs. SPERM WHALE

I embedded this video of a battle between a giant squid and a sperm whale here to illustrate a point. We've been talking about critical thinking in our last few classes. The concept that I tried to explain to everyone last week was "abduction." This describes what happens when we observe something (like what's happening in the video that I embedded here), and then make a logical inference based on that observation. Watch the video and then continue reading.



When you watched the video, you might have made some logical inferences such as…

1) Sperm whales fight against giant squids that are almost the same size.

2) Since the whale won, it's indicates that the whales usually comes out ahead in these battles.

3)Whales can be injured badly by giant squids.

From my research, it seems that sperm whales usually don't pick on giant squids that are fully grown; they try to eat juveniles that are much smaller than them. So, the first inference wouldn't hold up. However, the other two inferences would probably hold up to further evidence. So, this shows that abduction sometimes leads us to logical inferences that are true, but it can't always be trusted.

Whaling from various perspectives -- An Eskimo's point of view

The following are profiles of people who have unique perspectives on the whaling issue. Some of the people are fictional and others, such as Dora Arey, are real people whose account has been creatively constructed. In the case of Dora Arey, I have written in her voice, and therefore her perspective, as the wife of a captain of a whaling boat.  I used factual information from this article:

Neher, Jake. "North slope residents joyous as whales are landed." Arctic Sounder. 3 May 2011:  Web. 5 May 2011. <http://www.thearcticsounder.com/article/1118north_slope_residents_joyous_as_whales_are>.

Yuyan, K. (2020, March 26). People of the Whale – a portrait of traditional hunting in Alaska. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/feb/04/people-of-the-whale-a-portrait-of-traditional-hunting-in-alaska

My name is Dora Arey. My husband and I are eskimos living in Barrow, Alaska. The day before yesterday I had some very good news. I found out that my husband, who is the captain of one of our local Eskimo whaling teams, caught the first whale of the season for us. That's important because we live in a cold, harsh environment and whale meat is an important part of our diet. We'd have trouble surviving without it.

You may imagine that whaling boats are huge ships, and the "whalers" shoot gigantic harpoons at the whales using canons. That's very different from the way we catch whales. The techniques we use are the same ones that our ancestors used thousands of years ago. Small crews set out in tiny seal-skin boats when they see whales come close to shore. The whales are harpooned by hand by strong men at close range. It's dangerous work, especially when the whales get angry. We are only given a certain number of "strikes" by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. If a whale gets away or we miss hitting it, that's counted as a strike.

When I heard that my husband's crew caught a whale, I said, "Thank you, Lord! We receive it. We receive the blessing." We hold a big celebration to commemorate the first whale of the season. The whale will feed our whole community for a long time. We use every part of it. We consider whales to be our brothers. We can't live without each other.

If you take a look at the whale hunt on the following YouTube video, you'll get an idea of how our whale hunt looks.

Echospaces (2009, February 25). Iñupiaq Whale Hunt. Retrieved May 31, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAqEK7K5oCQ

Japanese government's position on whaling

In the following posting, I’ve used my imagination to show the views of an imagined senior bureaucrat in Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Some of the information backing up the point of view was taken from an English website hosted by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

"The Position of the Japanese Government on Research Whaling." Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. N.p.. Web. 6 Jun 2013. <http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/q_a/faq6.html>.

Japan has a long tradition of whaling that goes back to the 12th century. Starting in the last century, we started to do commercial whaling. Many Western countries, such as the US, Britain, and Portugal--who now protest our whaling--were involved in commercial whaling long before we were. Japan didn’t get started in modern, commercial whaling (with exploding harpoons and power-driven ships) until we learned the craft from Norway during the Meiji Period.

Whales may be seen as cute and intelligent animals by Australians, British people, and Americans, but to Japanese they are a source of protein and we see them as part of our traditional sea-based diet. Much beef is eaten in the US and Australia. Would it be right for us Japanese to protest that cute cows are sacrificed needlessly for selfish purposes. Of course not, we respect that Americans and Australians eat whatever they want to eat and make their own decisions about what they consider to be suitable for food. Why aren’t our food preferences respected?

Some say that we should not kill whales because they’re becoming more and more rare. In fact, as you may know, there has been a moratorium on whaling since1986 by the International Whaling Commission. This means that whales cannot be hunted for commercial purposes. Japan strongly supports the international protection of endangered whale species such as blue whales.

However, our government has also supported, since 1988, the harvesting (that means killing) of whales for research purposes so that we can find out, scientifically, if a sufficient number of whales exist for commercial whaling to be reestablished. Each year, we send whaling ships to Antartica and to the North Pacific to kill a sample of hundreds of whales. They include Minke whales, Bryde's whales, Sei whales, and sperm whales.

It is true that whale meat from these research whaling expeditions ends up in our markets and restaurants, but the sale of the meat does not create a profit; the funds that are generated are used only to fund a portion of the research program.

Some of the money that was supposed to go to recovery efforts after the 3/11 tsunami and earthquake also went toward funding the research whaling in the Antarctic. More money is necessary to cover security because of the increasingly aggressive actions of Sea Shepherd. Although they call US eco terrorists, it is THEIR organization and members who are the true eco-terrorists.

Thank you for reading our side of the story.

Taro Kujiramoto (Assistant to the secretary of the vice minister of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries)