Whaling from various perspectives -- A taxpayer's point of view

[The following account is fictional, but it is based on a collage of factual information.]

My name is Taro Watanabe and I'm a businessman living in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture and working in Tokyo. I pay a lot in taxes and they just seem to go up every year. I understand the need for paying taxes since the money is used to maintain roads, provide the salaries of public school teachers, and make parks pleasant places to rest. But, recently I heard that my taxes subsidize the whaling industry here in Japan. The whaling industry needs help from the Japanese government just to break even. For example, in the 2008-09 season, I read that the Japanese whaling industry required US$12 million of taxpayer money. You can read about it yourself in the following article:

World Wildlife Fund. "Norway, Japan Prop Up Whaling Industry With Taxpayer Money, Report Finds." ScienceDaily, 18 Jun. 2009. Web. 6 May 2011.

Even with all that extra money, the whaling industry couldn't make a profit. Besides that, the Japanese government had to pay a lot of money for public relations to compensate for the bad image that the whaling industry was giving Japan. This especially makes me upset since I've never eaten whale meat. I don't want to eat it since I know that it contains very high levels of mercury. As far back as 2003, the Scientific American, a respected science journal in the States, reported that ALL of the samples of whale and dolphin meat that they tested exceeded the Japanese guidelines for mercury levels, making it especially dangerous for pregnant women to eat. So, this means that I pay higher taxes so that the Japanese government can give my money to the whaling industry, which catches whales whose poisonous meat appears in supermarkets, harming the health of Japanese people. Does this make sense?

A few years ago, I went whale watching off Dana Point in California. You can get an idea of what I experienced by watching this YouTube video:



It was a fantastic experience. I was able to really get to respect and admire whales by seeing them up close. They're such majestic creatures. California and Hawaii have whale watching industries that bring in a lot of money, without the need for tax subsidies. So, wouldn't it be better for Japan to give up whaling and take up whale WATCHING instead? I can imagine whale-watching excursions from Fujisawa or Enoshima, near my hometown. The following story shows how whale watching could bring Japan more profit than whaling:

"Whale watching in Japan more profitable than whaling: report." Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion 29 June 2010: Web. 5 May 2011. .