In what is officially described as a ‘feasibility study’ for
expanded ‘research’ whaling, the fleet plans to harpoon 935 minke
whales and 10 endangered fin whales, before returning to Japan in
March 2007 with boxes of whale meat ready for market.
“To claim this whaling program is research is an insult to
science and to the Japanese people,” said Junichi Sato, Greenpeace
Japan Oceans Campaign Project Manager. “This `research’ project is
being pursued by small numbers of politicians and bureaucrats
simply to maintain their vested interests in one of the most
outdated industries in Japan and at the expenses of Japanese
taxpayers’ money”.
During the 2005/2006 whaling season the fleet sailed thousands
of miles to the Southern Ocean Sanctuary to carry out the first
phase of the new ‘feasibility study’ – to see if they could harpoon
about 1000 whales. They found they could, except when Greenpeace
activists put themselves between the harpoon and the whales.
According to the Japanese delegation at this year’s International
Whaling Commission the expedition was “a complete success”.
“If the last feasibility study was a so successful, then why do
they need another one?” said John Frizell, Greenpeace International
Ocean Campaigner. “This programme is just a flimsy excuse to push
for a resumption of commercial whaling, despite having no market
needs in Japan”
Recently, in response to a proposal to export whale meat caught
by the newly licensed commercial whaler in Iceland, the Japanese
ambassador to Iceland admitted there is a massive stockpile of meat
that had not been sold.
An opinion poll in Japan carried out in June 2006 by the Gallup
affiliate, the Nippon Research Centre, showed that 95% of Japanese
never or rarely eat whale meat and more than 70 % of Japanese do
NOT support whaling in the Southern Ocean.
