Japanese whale industry's flagship restaurant to close

The whale industry has announced plans to close its flagship whale meat restaurant in Tokyo as the nation's fleet of whalers prepares to depart on its annual cull.

Danielle Demetriou, The TelegraphYushin, owned by The Institute for Cetacean Research, the organisation behind Japan's whaling programme, and Kyodo Senpaku, which operates the whaling fleet, was designed to showcase and promote the consumption of whale meat in Japan.

However, the owners of the restaurant, which also had a whale meat shop and was located in the historic tourist area of Asakusa in Tokyo, have now unveiled plans to close it down.

Whale meat supplied in Yushin's shop and restaurant reportedly came directly from supplies on board Japan's whaling fleet's mother vessel, the factory ship Nisshin Maru.

Its demise came to light as the nation's annual whaling fleet was believed to be in the final stages of preparing to depart to the Southern Oceans in order to cull its annual quota of whales for scientific research.

Confirming that it was a financially motivated decision, a whaling industry spokesman told the Telegraph: "The purpose of Yushin was to enable more people to taste whale meat and to promote its consumption in Japan.

"We believe this purpose was achieved sufficiently and there was no reason to continue operating, particularly in the light of the costs involved in keeping a restaurant in a very expensive area of Tokyo."

The departure of the whaling fleet has been shrouded in secrecy this year amid growing fears of high-profile clashes with anti-whaling environmentalists such as Sea Shepherd.

Plans for the whaling fleet's traditional Buddhist ceremony at Shimonoseki port in southern Japan have reportedly been cancelled this year amid growing security fears.

Environmentalists hailed plans to close Yushin as a sign of a weakening whaling industry in a nation where demand for whale meat was in decline.

Sara Holden, whales campaign coordinator for Greenpeace International, said: "Although whaling officials claim the decline in business is due to a lack of supply, the Institute for Cetacean Research's own figures flatly contradict this; the stockpile of whale meat is actually increasing, which shows that there is no market for whale meat in Japan."

Anti-whaling activists have become increasingly high-profile in their opposition tactics in recent whaling seasons. Members of the Sea Shepherd organisation are planning to head to the Antarctic next month in order to confront the whaling fleet in a bid to minimise the volume of whales caught.

Last year, clashes between whales and activists led to the Japanese fleet returning home early, having caught 551 minke whales - reportedly several hundred fewer than their initial target. 13 Nov 08;