The Long Battle for the Whales: Page 4 Endangered Species Handbook

Trade

The Long Battle for the Whales: Page 4

Traditionally, the United States has maintained a strong anti-whaling stance and has been a major force in bringing about reductions in whaling quotas and the 1982 moratorium. Japan and Norway, however, are now whaling without any basis on sound science, and in violation of the spirit of the moratorium. Iceland is planning to reenter commercial whaling as well. Japan's high take of Minkes in Antarctic waters violates the 1994 sanctuary designation of the seas surrounding Antarctica (Chadwick 2001). To open markets worldwide to many types of whales, Japan has presented numerous proposals to downlist whales on CITES: two would have placed North Pacific and Southern Hemisphere stocks of the Minke Whale on Appendix II, one would have transferred eastern Pacific stock of the Gray Whale to Appendix II, and one would have downlisted the northwestern Pacific stock of Bryde's Whales from Appendix I to II. Bryde’s whales occur in all the world's oceans.

Japan has also continued its "scientific" whaling and announced in November 1994 that it would begin selling 65 tons of meat from Minke whales caught in the northwest Pacific. In an eight-year period from 1980 onward, Japan killed 28,818 Minke whales, and it has also imported enormous amounts of whale meat--123,955 tons between 1980 and 1991 (Chan et al. 1995a). This country provides the world's largest retail market for whale meat, buying illegally caught meat from pirate whalers around the world. A recent AWI-supported investigation by Steven Galster and Rebecca Chen (1994) uncovered enormous caches of illegal whale meat stockpiles held in Russia for eventual sale to Japan; 232 metric tons were found in Vladivostok alone, including thousands of pounds of meat from Bryde's Whales. This 50-foot species has been on Appendix I since the 1970s, and the illegal meat was being smuggled from Taiwan to South Korea and then to Japan. The latter smuggling operation began in 1988 and continued until at least 1994 (Galster and Chen 1994). Investigators found Bryde's Whales’ skin and fat being openly sold in a Japanese shop in 1995 (Chan et al. 1995a). Yet Japan claims it has legal stocks of frozen Sei, Fin, Bryde's and Sperm Whale meat (Chan et al. 1995a). Similar studies in the intervening years have determined that, based on DNA studies of whale meat sold in Japan, protected and endangered whales, including the Blue Whale, are still sold in Tokyo (ABC News, July 14, 2001).

Japanese and American toxicologists have also analyzed whale and dolphin meat and found extremely high levels of heavy metals (such as mercury) and toxic chemicals (such as dioxin and PCBs)--high enough to pose a serious health threat merely by eating a few ounces of blubber (Chadwick 2001). A study in the Faroe Islands north of Scotland found brain and heart damage in children whose mothers had eaten whale meat (Chadwick 2001).

Japanese national legislation does not cover the regulation of all whale meat sales, and it retails at an average of $64 per pound. In 1993 Japan enacted legislation that prohibited the capture, possession or sale of Blue and Bowhead Whales without a permit issued by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. However, this is not meaningful legislation since the Blue Whale has been legally protected from killing and international trade for decades, and Bowhead Whale meat can only be consumed by the native peoples who kill them. In another recent investigation by two scientists working for Earthtrust, DNA analyses were conducted on whale meat being sold in Japan. This sophisticated forensic study determined that the meat came from Humpback, Fin, and North Atlantic Minke Whale (AWI 1994). Humpback and Fin Whales are endangered species, and the revelation of this trade should have resulted in international sanctions, but it did not.

In 1996, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce formally certified Japan under the Pelly Amendment for outlaw whaling. Japan’s continued defiance of the IWC by granting itself "Scientific Permits" for research represents a lack of compliance with international treaties. An IWC Resolution recommended that scientific whaling be non-lethal. Yet in 1996, Japan announced that it increased the quota its ships can kill in the Antarctic from 330 to 440 Minke Whales, and continued to kill 100 whales in the north Pacific (Kristof 1996). At the 1996 IWC meeting, a Resolution was passed requesting Japan to halt its scientific whaling, in particular in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, and Japan's request for 50 Minke Whales from the North Pacific was turned down for the ninth year in succession. Although the Pelly Amendment allows trade sanctions on the enormous quantities of fisheries products that are imported into the United States, President Clinton announced on February 9, 1996, that he would not impose any penalty on Japan. The Animal Welfare Institute, through full-page newspaper advertisements and mailings, opposed the illegal whaling of both Japan and Norway, urging boycotts of products and services from these countries.

South Korea and Taiwan, while not permitting whaling, have shipped illegal whale meat to Japan. In 1993, South Korea received 3.5 tons of Minke Whale meat being smuggled from Norway, and one of its freighters was caught smuggling whale meat into Japan in 1994 (Chan et al. 1995a). Investigators found baleen whale meat and dolphin for sale in a vast fish market in Pusan, South Korea, in April 1995 (Chan et al. 1995a). Taiwan exported 14,590 boxes of whale meat to Singapore in 1993, and it is suspected of laundering illegal whale meat (Chan et al. 1995a).

The United States and other countries are under pressure to agree to a return to commercial whaling should whale populations increase. The IWC's "Revised Management Procedure" would authorize the slaughter. Estimates of a very large population of between 510,000 and 1.4 million Minke Whales in the Southern Hemisphere have proven to be too high, yet the IWC's Scientific Committee has approved a management plan that would permit the killing of 5,000 to 10,000 of these whales a year (Chadwick 2001). Japan's request for a Scientific Permit to kill Bryde's and Sperm Whales was turned down by the IWC in 2000, but it proceeded to take five Sperm Whales, 43 Bryde's Whales and 40 Minke Whales in a hunt in the North Pacific during that same summer. The same year, its proposals to downlist this species from Appendix I at the CITES Conference also failed. In the fall of 2000, Japanese whalers sailed to Antarctica for a five-month "research" trip, with plans to harvest up to 440 Minke Whales (Chadwick 2000). Both the IWC and CITES lack any enforcement powers, and the effectiveness of these Treaties depends on national legislation. For this reason, whalers have flouted regulations by killing protected whales for decades, with little fear of retribution. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) compiled a list of known violations by whalers since 1942, involving thousands of rare and endangered whales to illustrate this (AWI 1995). Those countries and organizations that believe in a return to commercial whaling support a cold-blooded approach to whales that does not recognize their intelligence, friendliness, and the lack of information on the extreme stresses they endure from other threats, including: pollution by toxic chemicals; ozone depletion that is destroying phytoplankton, which is the basis of marine food chains; collisions with ships; entanglements in fishing nets; and coastal development, to name just a few.