Whaling company Kyodo Senpaku announced in late March 2006 that current shareholders (which include fishing giant Nissui and four others) would transfer their shares to 'public interest corporations including the Institute of Cetacean Research' – a government agency.
Nissui, which owns 50 per cent of New Zealand-based Sealord, said it would stop distributing and selling whale meat as well.
This decision completely demolishes the commercial foundation of the Japanese whaling industry and it also removes any justification for continuing the so-called 'scientific' whaling program, which aims to prove that industrial whaling can be sustainable.
In late January 2006, Greenpeace said it was taking the fight against whaling from the high seas to the supermarket shelves.
In Australia more than 40,000 people answered our call and signed a web petition to Sealord urging them to pressure their parent company Nissui to get out of whaling.
Sealord felt similar pressure from around 14,000 emails in New Zealand. In the US, Nissui (through its subsidiary Gorton's ) felt pressure from Greenpeace, the Humane Society and the Environmental Investigation Agency.
In Argentina; a Greenpeace-led campaign saw Nissui lose seafood supply contracts, after activists placed stickers denouncing whaling on Nissui products in supermarkets, and more than 20,000 emails were sent to Nissui headquarters.
It is clear that even in Japan the message is getting through that whaling is bad for business, leaving the Japanese government trying to restart an industry that no-one wants. Research by Japanese newspapers shows that less than 4 per cent of Japanese people eat whale meat, and the government has to resort to force feeding whale meat to school children to reduce its huge whale meat stockpile.
Japan now faces increasing pressure to stop its annual whale slaughter, given that the 'data' they collect is commercially irrelevant and another 800 or so whale carcasses are about to be added to Japan's 5000ton mountain of frozen whale meat.
Nissui, which owns 50 per cent of New Zealand-based Sealord, said it would stop distributing and selling whale meat as well.
This decision completely demolishes the commercial foundation of the Japanese whaling industry and it also removes any justification for continuing the so-called 'scientific' whaling program, which aims to prove that industrial whaling can be sustainable.
In late January 2006, Greenpeace said it was taking the fight against whaling from the high seas to the supermarket shelves.
In Australia more than 40,000 people answered our call and signed a web petition to Sealord urging them to pressure their parent company Nissui to get out of whaling.
Sealord felt similar pressure from around 14,000 emails in New Zealand. In the US, Nissui (through its subsidiary Gorton's ) felt pressure from Greenpeace, the Humane Society and the Environmental Investigation Agency.
In Argentina; a Greenpeace-led campaign saw Nissui lose seafood supply contracts, after activists placed stickers denouncing whaling on Nissui products in supermarkets, and more than 20,000 emails were sent to Nissui headquarters.
It is clear that even in Japan the message is getting through that whaling is bad for business, leaving the Japanese government trying to restart an industry that no-one wants. Research by Japanese newspapers shows that less than 4 per cent of Japanese people eat whale meat, and the government has to resort to force feeding whale meat to school children to reduce its huge whale meat stockpile.
Japan now faces increasing pressure to stop its annual whale slaughter, given that the 'data' they collect is commercially irrelevant and another 800 or so whale carcasses are about to be added to Japan's 5000ton mountain of frozen whale meat.
