Japan's Whaling Fleet returns- now it's time for the lies and cover-ups to stop
The Japanese whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, is back in Japan, with its cargo of whale meat from the 2008-2009 season, by-product of the so-called scientific hunt in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. It's now a year since Greenpeace activists documented boxes of embezzled whale meat, some falsely labelled "cardboard", being offloaded and couriered to the homes of the ship's crew.
At the time, whistleblowers within the whaling industry said that was standard practice, yet the three organisations involved - the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ), the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) and Kyodo Senpaku (KS) immediately started contradicting each other. It was only later that the three managed to get their stories straight and claimed that the boxes of prime whale meat were approved as "souvenirs".
The photograph above was taken earlier today, in the Japanese port of Shimonoseiki. Now, we don't know what's in these boxes pictured above, but we're wondering, is the whaling industry so daft as to try and pull the same stunt again? Can they be trusted to have cleaned up their act? We don't know - the whaling industry has so far avoided our calls for documentation of the offloading of whale meat.
The 680
Reports in the media today indicated that the whaling fleet returned with the meat of 680 whales - that's 679 minke whales, and one lone, endangered, fin whale, to add to the already massive stockpiles of whalemeat. The whaling fleet set out to kill up to 935 minkes and and 50 fin whales. The previous season, they came back with no fin whales, saying that they "couldn't find any". As for their lack of minke whales, the whalers blamed anti-whaling protestors and bad weather for their lack of success.
But it's with the 680 whales that things get very interesting. The 935 whales I quoted comes from a desired figure from the whaling industry - 850 ± 10%. In November 2008, we reported that the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, had been told, unofficially, that Japan's whaling industry was slashing the quota for the Southern Ocean hunt by 20%, due to a drop in demand for whale meat. The authorities vociferously denied it, of course.
Now, if I may do a little mathematics, 850 less 20% is.... 680 - precisely the amount of dead whales that came back to Japan. Coincidence? Perhaps, notwithstanding their various logistical issues, they still felt the need to keep hunting until they caught the expected 850 - 20%?
In fairness, the original Asahi article in November stated that "The Japanese government will aim to catch 750 whales in the Antarctic Ocean during the season that runs through next spring, a drop of about 20 percent from the previous season's target, the sources said Wednesday." This is slightly different to my calculation. Even so, 679 minkes to an alleged quota of 700 (plus 50 minke whales) is pretty close. In 2008, the whalers brought home just 551 whales. Even this is too much, with thousands of tonnes of meat still sitting in storage.
Meanwhile, two Greenpeace activists, Junichi and Toru , who exposed the embezzlement of whale meat from the fleet are still on trial, facing up to ten years in prison. Japan's government, in the meantime, is doing nothing to address whale meat the scandal or track down the real criminals behind the embezzlement, who are pocketing taxpayer's money.
The FAJ initially promised greater transparency, but in January 2009, it again covered up the truth by heavily censoring documents containing whale meat sales data, released to Greenpeace following a Freedom of Information request. The FAJ, ICR and KS also denied another request to allow a Greenpeace documentation crew to monitor the whale meat being offloaded from the fleet this year.
Prominent human rights lawyer Richard Harvey has been particularly scathing on this issue of the blacked-out documents; "when government agencies react like this", he said, you could be fairly sure "they're involved in a serious cover-up".
Junichi, who is finally back in the office after the past part of a year, has said that "If the 'souvenir' practice has been legitimised, the public should at least be told how much of the 1.2 billion yen it has spent subsidising the so-called scientific whaling expedition has been spent on buying gifts for the crew."
Six hundred, and eighty whales. It's an improvement on 1,000 whales - but still 680 whales too much...
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Comments
Come on guys. You will try anything to take the great achievments by SS away from them. I bet you dont post this like the others ive sent.
What happened to freedom of speach?
Ady
Posted by: Adrian Boyle | April 16, 2009 4:34 PM
Hi Adrian - I'm a bit confused - I didn't mention Sea Shepherd (who I assume you're referring to as 'SS') at all in the article above. I wasn't present for any of the encounters between the whalers and Sea Shepherd, so I can't possibly comment on what went on.
What I do know is, for the whaling fleet to get its quote of around 935 minke whales, they need to kill on *average* around 9 minkes a day. Last year we spent 14.5 days with the Nisshin Maru - it ran, and didn't whale during that time. That's about 130 minkes 'saved'.
Yet, after two weeks encounters with the Esperanza, and and some with Sea Shepherd (don't know exactly) and the Australian government, the whalers came back with 551 minkes instead of 850 +/- 10% (max 935). It is possible, that all three parties managed to contribute to reducing the take last year, but it's hard to exactly why they came back with 551 - which is still far more than they were taking in previous years!
It seems to me that they're claiming a high possible quota, but are deciding against actually hunting it - because there's no market for the whale meat.
Also, I checked the archives for your name, and can't find any other comment post from you on Makes Waves. Was it on this blog, or another Greenpeace blog that you posted?
Thanks!
Posted by: Dave | April 16, 2009 5:03 PM
659 minke plus 1 fin equals 660 whales. So do you have fat fingers, the meat of 680 whales? If you have fat fingers and make typo errors I can't trust your editor, if you have poor math skills I have to doubt you and your story. Are you making things up and fail to remember true facts from fabricated facts?
Posted by: Dennis | September 26, 2009 6:55 PM
Hi Dennis, that was a typo, not a fabrication - now fixed. But if you're going to accuse people of fakery, you should use a real email address!
Dave
Posted by: Dave | September 28, 2009 10:02 AM
hahahahaha
Posted by: mmmmm | October 14, 2009 11:02 AM
Your writing style is interesting and kept me wanting for a lot more.
Posted by: Timothy Ruka | March 14, 2010 2:19 PM