A Japanese whaling fleet left port yesterday under tight security in the first hunt since the UN’s top court last month ordered Tokyo to stop hunts in the Southern Ocean.
Four ships departed from the fishing town of Ayukawa in the northeast, marking this season’s start to a coastal whaling program not covered by the International Court of Justice’s landmark ruling — which found Japan’s Southern Ocean expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.
Some observers had predicted that the Japanese government would use the cover of last month’s court ruling to abandon what many have long considered the facade of a scientific hunt.
Photo: AFP
Yet Tokyo’s decision to continue whaling was likely to set off a new battle with critics who had hoped the ruling would bring an end to a slaughter that the Japanese government has embraced as part of the island nation’s cultural heritage.
Some Japanese politicians have derided criticism from abroad as little more than cultural imperialism by the West, while locals in Ayukawa expressed fears the ruling could ruin their livelihoods.
At about 10:30am, whistles sounded as the flotilla and a trio of coast guard patrol boats set off after a ceremony with about 100 local dignitaries and crew. However, there were no protesters — a far cry from the antarctic hunt, which saw sometimes violent clashes between Japanese whaling crews and antiwhaling activists.
The town on Japan’s northeast coast was ravaged by the 2011 tsunami and still bears scars. Locals say their community’s existence rests heavily on the hunt.
“No matter what the court ruling was, all we can do is let everyone see that we’re still hanging in there,” 22-year-old crew member Koji Kator said. “People from outside are saying a lot of things, but we want them to understand our perspective as much as possible. For me, whaling is more attractive than any other job.”
Yuki Inomata, who works in a local whale processing factory, said he was glad that the annual hunt got under way, despite questions about the future of the industry in Japan.
“I don’t know what will happen next, but I hope we can continue whaling,” Inomata said.
Tokyo called off the 2014 to 2015 season for its Southern Ocean hunt, and said it would redesign the controversial whaling mission in a bid to make it more scientific.
Vessels would still go to the icy waters to carry out “non-lethal research,” raising the possibility that harpoon ships would return the following year.
That would put Japan in conflict with antiwhaling nations like Australia, which brought the case to the international court, arguing that Tokyo’s research was aimed at skirting a ban on commercial whaling.
Japan has hunted whales under a provision in a 1986 global moratorium that allowed it to conduct lethal research on the mammals, but has said that whale meat made its way onto menus.
Tokyo has maintained that it intended to prove the whale population was large enough to sustain commercial hunting. The coastal whaling program is considered part of “research” whaling, but was not targeted at the court battle in The Hague.
Japan widely hunted whales in the 19th century as a source of fuel and food, but the country’s taste for whale meat has diminished considerably in recent decades.
On Tuesday, a poll showed that 60 percent of Japanese support the country’s whaling program, but only 14 percent eat whale meat. Although not difficult to find in Japan, whale meat is not a regular part of most Japanese diets.
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