Stockpiles of whalemeat are increasing in Japan
From the amount of money and effort the Government of Japan spends on trying to expand their whaling industry and resume commercial whaling you'd think there was an incredibly high demand for whale meat in Japan wouldn't you? However from this graph, created using information from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan, it's clear that they don't have a high demand since more and more whale meat is getting stockpiled.
© Greenpeace
The Japanese Fisheries Agency claims that their current whaling is purely for scientific reasons but many IWC scientists claim that this "research" isn't useful. At the IWC meeting in 2005, a paper signed by 63 scientists representing 16 out of 30 national delegations contested the scientific claims of the Japanese proposal (1).
Some people have been led to believe that whales must be culled to improve fish stocks however, scientific research shows that there is no cause to blame them for the collapse of the fisheries since most of the world's whales primarily eat krill rather than fish (2). The sizes of many whale populations today are at a small fraction of their levels in pre-whaling times when commercial fish populations were considerably larger and much healthier than they are today (3). The primary predators of fish are other fish, not whales(4).
There doesn't appear to be any logical explanation why the Japanese government supports whaling on the high seas and since the majority of the Japanese public are also against it - isn't it about time they stopped?
1) Gales et al. 2005. Japan’s whaling plan under scrutiny, Nature, 435;16
2) Nemoto 1970. Feeding patterns of baleen whales in the ocean. In: Steele J, editor. Marine food chains. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 1970. p. 241–52
3) Pauly & Palomares 2005. Fishing down marine food web: it is far more pervasive than we thought. Bulletin of Marine Science.76:197–211
4) Trites et al. 1997. Competition between fisheries and marine mammals for prey and primary production in the Pacific Ocean. Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Science.22:173–87
Comments
Lisa,
Perhaps you'd care to inform your readers about what the figures in your graph actually show?
My analyses of the stockpile movements and trends in supply and consumption, on the other hand, are transparent:
http://david-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/search/label/stockpile%20figures
Posted by: david@tokyo | December 22, 2006 5:49 AM
Oh, do your figures show the average amount of whale meat in stock for each of those years?
In that case, that's a pretty meaningless statistic, because obviously supply of whale meat has increased significantly since 2000.
1) JARPN II research expansion
2) By-catch and stranded whales can now legally be marketed
3) JARPA II research expansion (not shown in your figures)
Supply has increased, thus obviously the average amount of whale meat in stock would be expected to increase.
At the same time, as I transparently show in my analyses, the volumes of outgoing stock have increased significantly in recent times, with outgoing stock volume in 2005 30% up on 2004, and 2006 volume is also up on 2005 (still without 2 months worth of figures).
Posted by: david@tokyo | December 22, 2006 5:56 AM
Also... it's a lie that the majority of the Japanese public "are against" whaling.
Posted by: david@tokyo | December 22, 2006 6:28 AM
Regardless of the desire for a quaint tradition, the Japanese no longer live in the 18th century. So, whether or not they "for" or "against" whaling is immaterial. The point is: Should any semi-nationalized industry be permitted to rape a limited global resource for a very narrow and selfish aim?
Posted by: Walter Freeman | February 15, 2007 10:49 PM
Actually David is right. If you want to say that the demand for whale meet is falling, then you need to show that the quantity being sold is falling (if the price is constant), not that the inventory of meat that whaling companies hold is rising.
Inventories are an investment decision by the firm, based on the variable nature of demand. Now graphs on Davids site show the quantity of meat sold rising. If this is true then I don't think we can assume that the Japanese have decided to stop eating whale meat.
Posted by: Matt Nolan | August 29, 2007 5:19 AM
Matt - For starters, I wouldn't take an graphs on David's site at face value.
And as you say, "if the price is constant". But government and whaling industry are pushing lower prices as well as new 'distribution channels' (like more whale meat in school lunches).
Whaling, and the price of whale, is about politics in Japan - not economic reality.
Posted by: Andrew | September 3, 2007 2:16 PM
David's blog says the consumption of whale meat is around 450 tonnes per month. Current stocks, he says, are 3855 tonnes.
Does that mean, using David's figures, that the whale meat being sold to Japanese people is on average 3855/450
=8 1/2 months old?
Or using the Greenpeace graph above about 102 months old??
Would YOU want to eat meat that was 10 months old?
Posted by: Craig | September 7, 2007 2:42 AM