Japan stands by its renewed 'scientific' whale slaughter

Justin Norrie, The Age 24 Nov 07

"This is nothing other than an economic activity. It leaves no room for researchers to carry out research based on their own ideas." Toshio Kasuya, a retired professor who worked for the Fisheries Agency's whaling program in the 1980s.

After the moratorium, Japan has killed almost 10,500 mostly minke and Bryde's whales, and has plans to slaughter several thousand more. By contrast, it killed just 840 whales in the name of scientific research between 1954 and the moratorium imposed in 1986.

LUIS Pastene's name is virtually unknown in the anti-whaling countries of the Western world. But the Chilean-born marine biologist feels their wrath every November when Japan's whaling fleet sets out on another expedition to cull hundreds of whales in the name of science.

"I'm getting so tired of the biased articles I read in Western newspapers each year at this time," says Dr Pastene, who supervises nine scientists studying whale samples at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research.

It is the work his team does here that drives Japan's "scientific whaling" program, and in turn provokes international outrage. Invariably, he says, the substance of his research is lost amid invective from activists. "It's time someone told the truth," he insists.

The truth, in simple terms, is that Japan's giant 8030-tonne factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, and three smaller whaling boats, left last Sunday for the Antarctic Ocean on the biggest scientific whale hunt in history. The fleet is intent on slaughtering as many as 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales, and, crucially, 50 of the vulnerable humpback whales protected by an international moratorium since 1966.

Back at the laboratories of the institute, not far from the world's biggest fish and seafood market at Tsukiji, Dr Pastene and his colleagues will scrutinise thousands of samples taken from blubber, livers, ear-plugs, ovaries and testes, bones, lungs and even the skin of foetuses borne by cows at the time of their death.

The institute is the centre of Japan's scientific whaling program. Critics say its research is a sham designed to allow the country to continue commercial whaling, but its staff says the data is crucial to understanding whale populations, their "stock structures", movements, feedings habits and contamination by pollutants. It should also give an indication, Dr Pastene says, of competition between different whale species for food.

"For example, when the size of a population has decreased substantially, more food will be available (per capita), blubber will be thick and these better nutritive conditions will promote a younger age at sexual maturity and the pregnancy rate will increase," he says.

"Ear wax is used to determine the age of the whales and the ovaries are used to check the maturity status of the females." Also, he says, pollutants such as mercury are absorbed through food and indicate how much krill — small crustaceans — the whale communities are consuming, and therefore how they are faring against other species.

This and other research, Japan's Fisheries Agency insists, is all carried out with the innocent aim of monitoring changes to environmental conditions and whale populations in the Antarctic. That could require "employing control of whale populations if needs be", the Government says more ominously in its whaling plan.

The institute's director-general, Minoru Morimoto, rejects claims by Australian scientists that more humane methods of study could produce the same results. "Mortality, birthing rates and accurate age determination, important for whale management, cannot be done through DNA analysis of random skin flakes," he says.

Because changes occur so slowly in a whale population, he says, a large sample is needed each year to gain accurate data. The whale meat left over is then sold by the institute, formerly a government agency, to fund research for the following year.

By using mostly anecdotal data to hypothesise that an increase in the number of protected humpback whales — from roughly 1200 in 1963 to 30,000-40,000 now — is hurting minke whale populations, the body has now decided to add the humpback species, beloved of whale watchers across the world, to its research program. This "major shift" in the ecosystem must be closely watched, it warns. Due to the lack of hard data available, however, it has opted for a "precautionary approach" and settled on a small sample size of 50.

"Humpback whales in our research area are rapidly recovering," says Hideki Moronuki, whaling chief at the Fisheries Agency. "Taking 50 humpbacks from a population of tens of thousands will have no significant impact."

As Dr Pastene points out, the main purpose is to obtain the scientific information that will allow a "rational use of whale stocks in future". In other words, it might be said that Japan is killing whales to justify more killing — an irony that is not lost on its fiercest critics.

One of them has appeared recently from within the ranks of Japan's own scientific fraternity. Toshio Kasuya, a retired professor who worked for the Fisheries Agency's whaling program in the 1980s, launched a scathing attack on his former colleagues.

"Without the earnings from the meat sales, the whaling organisation that undertakes the government-commissioned research program would be unable to continue operation, and the shipping company that provides the fleet for the program would not be able to recover costs for whaling vessel construction," he wrote in a newspaper.

"This is nothing other than an economic activity. It leaves no room for researchers to carry out research based on their own ideas."

More controversially, he says scientists were told in the 1980s to manipulate the quota of whales needed for research to ensure the program continued for as long as possible. "I regret very much my role in setting up this illegal whale research."

Twenty years later, Japan has killed almost 10,500 mostly minke and Bryde's whales, and has plans to slaughter several thousand more. By contrast, it killed just 840 whales in the name of scientific research between 1954 and the international moratorium on commercial whaling, imposed in 1986.

Whale meat, meanwhile, is more widely available than ever in Japanese supermarkets and was also included in the regular menu of the Tsubohachi izakaya (Japanese-style pub) chain this year.

In 2005, Kushiro, a small town in Hokkaido, became one of the first in Japan to put whale meat back into school lunches in a push to rejuvenate its depressed economy through the whaling industry. A local seafood processing company began producing whale burgers and even whale curry — in "handy boil-in-a-bag pouches".

Naoka Funahashi, the Japanese director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, believes it is only national pride, compounded by indignation at criticism from the West, that stirs many Japanese into professing support for whaling.

Several hotly disputed polls suggest young Japanese people nowadays have little liking for the fatty meat, and one Australian study has found university students are mostly opposed to whaling.

But Mr Moronuki, from the Fisheries Agency, scoffs at this. "I also felt in the same way when I was a student … but the thing is, students don't fully understand the facts.

"On the other hand, when I try to explain the problem about the resources level of whales or what we should do to use resources continuously, many people start to understand."