Fisheries resource: A humpback breaches during its migration along Australia's coast.
Credit: Daniel Bayer/AFP
TOKYO: Japan came under a storm of criticism on Monday for going ahead with its largest whale hunt yet, with Australia's resurgent opposition calling for the military to be brought in.
Defying warnings from its Western allies that it would inflame an emotional row on whaling, Japan sent its fleet to the Antarctic Ocean on Sunday. For the first time the hunt will include the protected humpback whale.
A ship of Greenpeace environmentalists tried – so far in vain – to track down the six-vessel whaling fleet as the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand all spoke out against the catch.
Japan argues that whale meat is part of its culture, and plans to kill 950 whales on the five-month mission using a loophole in a global moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals.
Bring in the military
Australia's opposition Labor Party, which is leading in polls ahead of national elections on Saturday, said it would send out the navy to track the Japanese whalers and take video footage if it wins power.
"We really need to rattle the cage here," Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland said. "It's unacceptable that it's not only going on, but getting worse."
While Prime Minister John Howard said he disagrees with Japanese whaling, he is opposed to bringing in the military. "What, is he [McClelland] going to shoot them?" Howard asked. "Mr McClelland knows darn well that what he is suggesting is an empty gesture, that what we should be doing is continuing to pursue diplomatically and with whatever legal mechanisms are available to us."
Hideki Moronuki, the whaling chief at Japan's Fisheries Agency, also cast doubt on the threats by Australia's opposition. "The whaling research which Japan is conducting is 100 per cent based on the International Whaling Commission charter, so dispatching the military against it is impossible," Moronuki told AFP.
Lethal research
The U.S. acknowledged Japan's right to conduct the hunt, but urged it to "refrain" from doing so. "While recognising Japan's legal right under the whaling convention to conduct this hunt, we note that non-lethal research techniques are available to provide nearly all relevant data on whale populations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The environmental group Greenpeace's Espernaza ship was trying to find the fleet to shoot footage but said that the whalers had turned off identification equipment. "They're playing a little hard to get," Greenpeace activist Dave Walsh told AFP by satellite telephone from aboard the Esperanza in the Pacific Ocean.
"If they're so confident they're doing the right thing, they shouldn't have anything to hide, but obviously they do," he said, pledging Greenpeace would find them eventually.
The more militant Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has vowed to take to the waters next month to physically stop the hunt. During the last expedition, Sea Shepherd activists threw bottles of chemicals at the whalers in hopes of disrupting them, leading Japan to denounce anti-whaling activists as "terrorists".
Humpback whales, protected under a 1966 worldwide moratorium after years of overhunting, are renowned for their complex songs and acrobatic displays. The humpbacks' slow progression along Australia's coast to breed has turned into a major tourist attraction, bringing 1.5 million whale watchers each year.
The Japanese whaling chief said that the fleet was not targeting humpback whales. "Japan doesn't have a specific position on humpback whales. They are a fisheries resource as much as any other whale and when it is scientifically proven that there are enough resources, we conduct sustained research," Moronuki said.
Only Norway and Iceland openly defy a 1986 moratorium on commercial hunting of all whales. Japan argues that it abides by the agreement but makes no secret that the meat from the hunt ends up on dinner plates.
whale meat
why not let the folks who live in areas where they cant raise chickens ,cattle ,lambs,turkeys.or even grow collards have a few of the more plentyful whales to eat we kill deer and anything else we want for food here in alabama who is gonna miss a few whales from way down under if they dont get greedy and try to get them all sounds like they have a pretty fair quota to me