Japan to start commercial whaling again

[Black Orchid]

Japan will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in a bid to resume commercial whaling, Japan's Kyodo news agency says.

Tokyo's withdrawal from the IWC is planned for 2019 and will be announced by the end of this year, according to the report which cited government sources.

The Japanese Government is considering commercial whaling only in seas near Japan and its exclusive economic zone, Kyodo reported.

Earlier this year, Japan's attempts to overturn a global commercial whaling ban failed when anti-whaling nations defeated a Japanese proposal that would have allowed whale hunts.

Japan halted commercial whaling in 1982 in line with a moratorium adopted by the IWC.

The country has hunted whales in the Southern Ocean since 1987 for what it calls "scientific research" purposes, but this has been criticised internationally as a cover for commercial purposes.

Japan has long maintained that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is a cherished part of its food culture.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-20/ ... n/10638664

[Black Orchid]

Seventy-five per cent of Japanese whale meat 'unsold'
Three-quarters of the tons of meat from Japan's controversial whale hunt last year was not sold, despite repeated attempts to auction it, officials said on Wednesday.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, a quasi-public body that organises the country's whaling, said around 75 per cent of roughly 1,200 tons of minke, Bryde's and sei meat from the deep-sea mission did not find buyers.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... nsold.html

Good numbers are hard to come by but A 2006 poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the independent Nippon Research Centre found that 95 percent of Japanese people very rarely or never eat whale meat. And the amount of uneaten frozen whale meat stockpiled in Japan has doubled to 4,600 tons between 2002 and 2012.

https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese- ... -big-deal/

[Black Orchid]

What is with the Japanese obsession with whaling? The meat was just dumped!

The news emerged this month, when the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) revealed documents showing that the Japanese government rejected imports of Norwegian whale meat because tests showed samples contained pesticides at twice the limit Japan imposes on its imports. The meat harboured chemicals such as aldrin, dieldrin, and chlordane, thought to play a role in causing birth defects, neurological harm, and some cancers if humans consume them in high quantities.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... whale-meat

Whale and dolphin meat is also often loaded with mercury. In 2011, the EIA purchased whale meat in Japan and found that one sample contained 21 parts per million of the toxic metal, 50 times above Japanese safety limits.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/03 ... esticides/

Personally I hope they poison themselves.

[cods]

it doesnt make sense black orchid.....but there is another side.. lets not forget Japan is not the only country that whales hunts .

whales do seem to pro create on a regular basis....and I have seen David ATtenboroughs blue planet and whales are on the increase... in fact ion some places they have never seen so many.... what bothers me about these gorgeous animals...is feeding them...will the ocean provide for them if left to breed willy nilly so to speak...... who knows for all we know the reason behind them beaching themselves could be lack of their natural food....

[BigP]

""whales do seem to pro create on a regular basis.""


Cods , it would be safe to say that most species that exist at the present procreate on a regular basis, Im not sure how that relates to the over explotation of a species ?