Japan's whaling fleet is heading home from the Antarctic, days after officials in Tokyo first admitted that they would be "suspending" this year's hunt and then confirmed they were ending it early. According to officials from the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ), the fleet caught just 170 of its intended 945 whales.
BLOG: Is This The End of Antarctic Whaling?
The abrupt curtailment of the whaling season, and the nature of the announcement, has left observers optimistic that a century of Antarctic whaling is over, but also a little puzzled. As my friend and colleague Remi Parmentier notes on his blog, during recent (and ultimately failed) negotiations among member nations of the IWC, Japanese officials argued privately they needed a "face-saving" way out of the Antarctic; recently released Wikileaks cables portrayed Japan urging the United States to take action against Sea Shepherd because Tokyo officials could not be seen internally to be surrendering to what they have frequently dubbed a "terrorist organization."
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But that is now exactly what they have done. Perhaps the readiness with which the FAJ blamed Sea Shepherd for the end of the whaling season was a Macchiavellian attempt to court support for the whaling industry from nationalist elements in Japan. Perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the obvious. Or perhaps the alternative reasons - that the industry is broke, corrupt, and producing meat that nobody wants to eat - were even worse.
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In any case, the Japanese media has joined the speculation that the end of Antarctic whaling may be nigh.
According to The Daily Yomiuri:
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one high-ranking ministry official said five alternative scenarios have so far been studied: -- Have the whaling fleet escorted by Japan Coast Guard vessels or others. -- Build new whaling vessels capable of traveling at high speed. -- Replace research whaling with commercial whaling. -- Continue with the current whaling arrangements. -- End whaling in the Antarctic Ocean. The first option, whaling accompanied by escort vessels, was discussed in the government from around 2007, but was scrapped because there are no escort vessels that could travel all the way to the Antarctic. The second alternative is "almost impossible," the official said, due to the government's severe fiscal condition. Concerning the third option, Japan sought to bring about an IWC accord to resume commercial whaling at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in June 2010. However, the meeting broke down when the gap could not be bridged between whaling and antiwhaling nations. [...] The ministry official said, "With the suspension of research whaling, there is no possibility of whaling continuing from next season as it has in the past."
Which, if you're counting, would leave option five - an end to Antarctic whaling, an option that another newspaper, The Daily Mainichi, gave qualified support:
Many Japanese people feel uncomfortable about aborting the research whaling program due to pressure from overseas, and have expressed support for the continuation of the mission. However, few Japanese people eat whale meat today, and the need to continue research whaling has significantly decreased. [...] The government should take this opportunity to fundamentally review its whaling policy, and even consider suspending the program.
Photo by Stahlkocher, via Wikimedia Commons
Tags: Antarctica, Conservation, Whales
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