Why is Japan killing whales?

Japan has resumed commercial whaling in its waters despite global outrage.

Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction until 1986, at which point a group of countries agreed to temporarily stop whaling for profit. 

It turned into an international semi-ban.

But conservationists are now worried the species might be under threat again. Many countries had continued to hunt whales for "scientific" purposes all along, including Japan.

Recently, Japan announced the resumption of commercial whaling in its waters.

Killing Whales

People and Power investigates a fierce personal battle that's raging over the future of whaling in Icelandic waters.

It may come as a surprise to those who thought the practice had long since been outlawed internationally, but although almost universally condemned as inhumane by animal rights groups and conservationists, commercial whaling still goes on - in Japan, Norway and, albeit with occasional breaks, Iceland.

In the latter, where this documentary was filmed, it's only a small industry that's left defying both a global moratorium that's been in place since 1986 and the mass of public opinion around the world that has come to see killing whales as nothing short of murder.

Japan's Illegal Whaling Fleet Has Returned

After skipping a year due to pissing off the neighbours Japan once again sent forth its "research" whaling fleet to study, just how many minke whales can be killed  so that they keep killing minke whales.  How far does one have to stick their head up their ass to understand just how little your bullshit lies are working.  So, where does all this research end up? As school lunches because nobody wants to buy the whale meat.

Japan has confirmed whales were killed on its most recent “scientific” expedition in the Antarctic region.

Four survey ships from Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research were in the Antarctic region over a period of 115 days from 1 December last year.

The institute’s report said 333 minke whales were captured, including pregnant females.

Japan’s actions are in defiance of international criticism and despite a 2014 UN legal decision that ruled so-called scientific whaling activity in the Southern Ocean was a front for commercial hunts.

The Australian government has described Japan’s decision to resume whaling over the southern hemisphere summer as “deeply disappointing” and says it has raised concerns at the highest level of the Japanese government.

The other justification for conducting this assine research is to bolster Japan's whaling fleet and the "long" tradition of whaling in Japan which began a long time ago in a century far, far away. The late 19th century that is.

Japanese PM's website hacked by whaling protesters

Every year the Japanese government sends its scientific research whaling fleet to the Southern Ocean all in an effort they to better understand the world's cetaceans.  Given all the money and time put into this research you'd think there'd be better scientific understanding of this planet's  largest mammals.  About the only thing one can say about these so called scientific expeditions is that it helps sustain an antiquated industry which has no economic value or sustainability.  Japan's government and the industry  itself use contradictory terms to describe what they're true  intentions are.  On the one side is the industry which claims there is a long standing tradition of whaling in Japan which isn't true and that the meat is a popular delicacy in Japan which it's not. They have to give the stuff away to public schools for use in their school lunches.      

Hacktivists claim to have crashed Shinzo Abe’s website in protest at Japan’s Antarctic mission to kill whales for ‘research’

Hackers have claimed to have disabled the website of the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in protest at his country’s decision to resuming its whaling programme in the Southern ocean, in defiance of international opinion.

A tweet, purportedly from a member of the loose collective of hacktivists,Anonymous, and addressed to Abe’s Twitter account, said: “Whaling is not cultural right! Your website is #TangoDown!”

The tweet was accompanied by a screenshot showing that connections to the site were not working. The website appeared to have returned to normal late on Thursday afternoon.

Japan's Phony Research Whaling Proposal Is Rejected

Using a loophole in the 1986 ban on commercial whaling  the Japanese government has, each year sent research whaling ships to the Southern Ocean in their words to carry out scientific analysis of whale populations in that part of the world.  Yet, no credible research has ever been provided to the scientific community that would justify the continuation of the program.  On Monday excerpts from the International Whaling Commission rejected Japan's latest request to restart the program.   

The reason this program exists at all is to keep a few interested fisheries corporations  and their Liberal Democratic Party backers happy and along with a steady income from an unnecessary research program.

Japan’s hopes of resuming its whale hunts in the Southern Ocean have suffered a setback after International Whaling Committee experts said its latest plan offered no scientific justification for the slaughter.
The IWC panel said Japan’s revised programme, known as Newrep-A, did not contain enough information for experts to determine whether Japan needed to kill whales to fulfil two key objectives: calculating the size of populations necessary for a return to sustainable commercial hunting, and gaining a better understanding of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.
“With the information presented in the proposal, the panel was not able to determine whether lethal sampling is necessary to achieve the two major objectives,” the IWC experts’ report said. “Therefore the current proposal does not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling to achieve those objectives.”

Japan To Resume Phony Whale Research Hunt

You'd think after getting kicked in the teeth by International Court of Justice which concluded that Japan's so called whale research was nothing more than commercial exploitation of an endangered species the hunt was cancelled this year.   

Searching for away to placate the fishing industry the Abe government has decided to exploit loop-holes in the law and resume the hunt.

But a new policy announced by the pro-whaling government on Tuesday hopes to bypass this ruling by giving the controversial mission a more scientific focus.

Whaling vessels will collect “data necessary to calculate the number of whale catch allowed (once commercial whaling resumes),” and “construct a model of the Antarctic Ocean ecosystem,” an official of the Japan Fisheries Agency told AFP.

“We are thinking that we will only target Antarctic minke whales in the new plan,” he said.
Minke whales are believed to be more numerous than the fin and humpback whales also harpooned in past missions.

Japan starts first whale hunt since UN ruling

Folowing a ruling by the UN's top court many observors suggested that Japan would discontiue its research whaling having been the focus of controvosy since its eception following a world wide ban on whaling in the 1980's.

Japan's research whaling program is nothing more than a scam prepertated by the Japanese government and the fishing industry to cover its real purpose, commerical whaling  not research.

Given all the research that's supposedly been conducted one one would assume that peer reviewed papers in the field of cetology would have been published, yet there is no clear evedence that any such papers or studies have been submitted to any recognised scientific  journal in the field.

A Japanese whaling fleet, the first since the UN's top court ordered Tokyo to stop killing the mammals in the Antarctic under the guise of research, has left port under tight security with a lowered target of whales to be killed along the country's northern coast.

Four ships departed from the fishing town of Ayukawa in the northeast on Saturday, marking this season's start to a coastal whaling programme 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 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.

But Tokyo's decision to continue whaling is 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.

UN court: Japan whaling 'not scientific'

The UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Japan's Antarctic whaling programme is not for scientific purposes.

Japan catches about 1,000 whales each year for what it calls scientific research.

Australia filed a case with the ICJ in May 2010, arguing that Japan's programme - under which it kills whales - is commercial whaling in disguise.

The UN's top court is currently reading out its ruling.

The United Nations has ruled that Japan's phony scientific whaling program has finally been shown for what it is.  Perhaps the Japanese government will suspend the program.