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Unaccounted traces of whales found in Japanese sampling

Forensic-style DNA sampling of whale meat in Japanese markets turned up fin whales that cannot be accounted for, Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute said.

The institute monitors Japanese whaling and reported its findings to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meetings this month in Chile.

Meat from at least 15 individual fin whales was being sold in 2006 and last year — two more than the Japanese government reported killing as part of its scientific whaling program during the same period, Scott Baker, associate director of the institute, said on Friday.

Baker said the institute’s fin whale DNA database is not extensive enough to identify where the individual whales came from, but there remains concern that whales are being killed illegally, or are not being properly reported and documented after being taken incidentally in fishing nets.

The institute has been reporting to the commission on genetic testing of whale meat from Japanese markets since 1994.

The latest sampling procured 99 samples of whale meat, mostly from Internet sales outlets in Japan, of which 39 proved to be fin whale, Baker said. The rest were other whale species.

Meanwhile in Chile, whales emerged the big losers as a weeklong IWC meeting wrapped up on Friday, conservation groups said after antiwhaling countries failed to halt No. 1 hunter Japan.

Anti-whale hunting countries, led by Australia, have voiced deep concern at Japan’s skirting a nonbinding 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling by killing hundreds of whales each year in the name of scientific research.

Japan says it is unhappy with the moratorium and wants to resume commercial whaling, although detractors say it is already doing so in all but name.

The issue has generated so much tension that commission chairman Bill Hogarth, seeking to avoid confrontation, set up a working group to try to build consensus over the next year.

But that step, with countries urged not to vote against each other on Japanese whaling or calls for a South Atlantic whale sanctuary, means little was achieved at the meeting, environmentalists said.

“I think it was a disappointing week for whales,” said Ralf Sonntag of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
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