Posted on behalf of Anjali Nayar
Japan suspended its Antarctic whaling operations early for the first time in history today, after sustained attacks by a US-based conservationist group.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society fleet has been playing cat and mouse with Japanese fishing vessels every year since 2005 during the whaling season, which usually starts in December and ends in March or April.
Over the years, the interactions have become more violent. Last year a Sea Shepherd catamaran collided with a Japanese vessel and sank. The captain of the conservation vessel was then convicted of assault and vandalism.
This year activists occupied two of Japan’s three harpoon ships for a period of weeks as well as attempted to foul one the vessel’s propellers, according to the Institute of Cetacean Research, a Japanese government-sponsored institution.
’’We’ve decided to wind up our research whaling unavoidably from the viewpoint of securing the safety of the crew and the boats,’’ Michihiko Kano, Japan’s minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries said during a press conference in Tokyo today.
According to Japan’s largest paper, Yomiuri Shimbun, the drama started on 9 February when protesters tried to jam ropes into the propellers of the Nisshin Maru, the main processing ship of the Japanese fleet. The ship then fled roughly 2000 miles east of their whaling grounds, with Sea Shepherd’s Bob Barker vessel in hot pursuit, according to Sea Shepherd’s founder Paul Watson.
Sea Shepherd was quick to declare “victory”, though many researchers in the field say the outcome is less clear. Watson told journalists by satellite phone that, Japan has caught fewer than 100 whales this year, compared with a usual catch of between 500-1,000.
“Neither side can claim they are in the right,” says Douglas Butterworth, a professor in applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town, who models management procedures for whales.
The Iruka & Kujira (Dolphin & Whale) Action Network reported last month that stockpiles of whale meat in Japan reached more than 6,000 tons last year, suggesting falling demand.
But on the other hand, the way that the Sea Shepherd carries out its protests, “is basically eco-terrorism”, says Butterworth.
“Fouling propellers down there is no joke at all,” says Butterworth. “It’s extremely dangerous, the game Sea Shepherd are playing, because the Antarctic is a very harsh environment and it’s very lucky that nobody’s been killed.”
Also uncertain is what Japan’s newest action means for the country’s long term whaling policy. Although Japan continues to hunt a few hundred whales off its coast in the North Pacific, some observers think it could suggest a changing policy in the hotly contested Southern Ocean Sanctuary off Antarctica. The country got a new government recently, and the subsidized hunt is expensive to maintain in tough economic times.
Then there is the country’s international reputation. Although the whales hunted by Japan are not at risk of extinction, many countries oppose the hunt on ethical grounds. “Japan don’t want to be the bad guys of the oceans, they understand that this position is ruining their image,” says François Simard, the senior advisor for fisheries at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
But, “Japan never accepted that its behaviour regarding marine living resources should be dictated by other countries,” he adds. “So it’s my guess that they will never agree to stop whaling completely.”
Japan’s whaling policy will be discussed again this July in the UK’s Channel Islands, at the 63rd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission.
Image: Sperm whale in Kaikoura, Southern island, New Zealand / IUCN Photo Library © Imène Meliane