Japan Whaling Fleet Sailing Despite International Pressure

Japan Whaling Fleet Sailing Despite International Pressure



Japan's Whaling Fleet Sails Despite International Censure
TOKYO, Japan, November 20, 2007 
 Defying international pressure and 
a global whaling ban, the government of Japan launched its whaling fleet 
Sunday morning for an international whale sanctuary around Antarctica, 
where it intends to kill more than 1,000 whales over the next four months. 

The fleet left its home port of Shimonoseki after a ceremony featuring 
family and friends of the crew holding smiling whale balloons and signs as 
a brass band played Popeye the Sailor Man. 
Japan has announced that the fleet intends to kill 50 endangered fin 
whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 935 minke whales this season. 

The European Commission said today that it is "deeply concerned by Japan's 
plans to kill up to 1,000 minke, fin and humpback whales in a South 
Pacific whale hunt that will run until mid-April 2008." 
The Commission emphasizes that there is no need to use lethal means to 
obtain scientific information about whales, and that adequate data for 
management purposes can be obtained using non-lethal techniques. 
Japan's scientific whaling undermines international efforts to conserve 
and protect whales, the European Union's executive branch said, pointing 
out that the International Whaling Commission, IWC, has repeatedly adopted 
resolutions urging Japan to refrain from lethal scientific whaling. 
But diplomatic pressure and world opinion is having no effect on the 
determination of the Japanese to hunt whales. 
"The number of whales taken in Japan's research program is far below the 
potential biological removal (an estimate of the maximum number of animals 
that can be removed from a population – not including natural mortalities, 
while still allowing that stock to maintain its optimum sustainable value) 
for the species," according to the Institute of Cetacean Research in 
Tokyo, which carries out Japan's whale research program in the Antarctic 
and western North Pacific.

  
"Japan's research makes a valuable contribution to the management of 
Antarctic whale species to ensure that any future commercial whaling 
regime is robust and sustainable to provide a reliable food source for 
generations to come," said the ICR Director General Minoru Morimoto. 
Within the IWC, Japan is working to overturn the global moratorium that 
has been in place since 1986 and replace it with a managed regime of 
commercial whaling. 
In opposition to this plan and the annual whale hunt, conservation groups 
are again planning to confront the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean. 
"The whaling fleet must be recalled now," said Karli Thomas aboard the 
Greenpeace ship Esperanza off Shimonoseki on Sunday. "If it is not, we 
will take direct, non-violent action to stop the hunt." 
But things went wrong for the Greenpeace ship on the first day of its 
mission. Instead of following the whaling fleet as it headed south, the 
Esperanza followed another unrelated ship and lost the trail. Still, 
Greenpeace is headed south to intercept the whalers. 
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society crew will depart from Melbourne, 
Australia the first week of December headed for the Southern Ocean to 
interfere with the whale hunt. Sea Shepherd is approximately seven days 
from the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. 
Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson assures the world that his crew 
will not be violent in its protest actions. 
"Despite inflammatory statements to the contrary and misrepresentations 
from the public relations flaks for the outlaw Japanese whalers, the Sea 
Shepherd Conservation Society has no intention of ramming any Japanese 
whalers on the high seas," he said today. 

"We have never rammed a Japanese whaler, we have never said we will ram a 
Japanese whaler and we have never implied that we will ram a Japanese 
whaler," said Watson. "Last year the Japanese rammed our ship twice. In 
2006 we sideswiped the Japanese supply ship causing absolutely no damage. 
It is the Japanese that deploy ramming as a tactic." 
"It amazes me that politicians get on their high horse to denounce Sea 
Shepherd everytime some P.R. whore for the Japanese whalers accuses us of 
eco-terrorism," fumed Watson. "The terrorists are the Japanese whalers. 
They are targeting highly endangered whales in a whale sanctuary in 
violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling." 
"This is the crime and the Japanese whalers are filling the sea with the 
hot blood of the whales as they cry crocodile tears over their tales of 
manufactured violence by whale defenders," he said. 
"In 30 years of operations the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never 
caused a single injury and that is a record we intend to keep," Watson 
pledged. 
Legal analyses by international panels of independent legal experts 
convened in Paris, Sydney, and London agree with Watson's long-hel view 
that the Japanese whale hunt is a crime. 
In a report issued November 14, they state that Japan's expanding whaling 
is in violation of IWC regulations and the Convention on International 
Trade in Endangered Species. 
The International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW, which commissioned the 
legal review, says the time has come for decisive action to end Japan's 
expanding whaling program. 
"Some of the world's top legal experts have made the case. Japan's whaling 
is not just cruel, it's criminal. It is time for the international 
community to act to end this illegal activity," said Patrick Ramage, 
IFAW's Whale Program manager.

Ambassador Alberto Szekely of Mexico, an international law professor who 
served as coordinator of the London Panel and related expert panels 
convened in Paris and Sydney last year said, "Japan's repeated assertion 
that its whaling activities are legal is incorrect and misleading. 
'Scientific whaling' as conducted by Japan violates international law and 
should not be allowed to continue." 
The London report finds Japan's current and proposed takings of humpback 
and sei whales as well as other whale species "are for primarily 
commercial purposes" and "plainly constitute international trade." 
"Killing endangered whales for products that nobody needs is beneath the 
dignity of a great nation like Japan," said Ramage. "It's time for Japan 
to put away the harpoons and join the emerging global consensus for whale 
conservation in the 21st century." 
Japan's self-allocated whaling quota for 2007-2008 includes more than 
1,400 whales of seven different species - Antarctic minke, common minke, 
fin, sei, Brydes, sperm and humpback whales from the North Pacific and the 
waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica, 
established by the International Whaling Commission in 1994. 

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