Japan confirms whales killed during 'scientific' expedition to Antarctica

Four ships in the region also capture 333 minke whales, including pregnant females

Australian Associated Press

Thursday 24 March 2016 07.57 GMTLast modified on Thursday 24 March 201607.59 GMT

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.

It had said it would consider sending a customs patrol vessel to the Southern Ocean as well as exploring options for legal action.

But conservation group Sea Shepherd said in February that the Japanese fleet had faced little or no scrutiny over the summer and Australia and New Zealand seemed unwilling to send a ship to intercept them.

Source …

No fin whales to be hunted in Iceland this summer

Director of country’s biggest whaling company says his fleet will not be hunting this season because of problems exporting the meat to Japan

Jessica Aldred

Thursday 25 February 2016 15.26 GMTLast modified on Thursday 25 February 201618.37 GMT

Conservationists are hopeful that an end to commercial whaling in Iceland has moved one step closer following media reports that no fin whales will be hunted there this summer.

Kristjan Loftsson, the director of Iceland’s largest whaling company, told daily newspaper Morgunbladid on Wednesday that Hvalur HF would not be sending out vessels to slaughter the endangered whales this season because of difficulties exporting the meat to the Japanese market.

Last year, Loftsson’s whaling company is reported to have killed 155 fin whales, and a total of 706 since Iceland resumed commercial whaling in 2006. Icelanders traditionally do not eat meat from fin whales, making the world’s second largest whale a species hunted specifically with a view for sale in Japan.

According to reports, Loftsson has faced increased difficulty in his whaling activities in recent years due to a combination of logistical problems, a falling market for whale meat and increased international opposition to whaling.

Last year’s fin whaling season, which usually begins in mid-June, was delayed because of a strike by veterinary inspectors. At the same time, the company’s attempts to ship 1,700 tonnes of whale meat to Japan via Angola were hampered by the reluctance of some foreign ports to allow transit of the meat. A similarly controversial delivery of 2,000 tonnes in 2014 sparked protests and was turned away from several ports.

Read on ...

Campaigners try to halt Japan whale hunt in last-ditch legal fight

Australian environmental group asks court in Sydney to find Japanese whalers in contempt of a 2008 ruling banning fleet from the Southern Ocean

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Tuesday 17 November 2015 11.33 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 17 November 201512.10 GMT

Environmental campaigners are launching a last-ditch legal attempt to preventJapan from slaughtering whales in the Antarctic this winter, after Tokyo indicated it would ignore a ban on its “scientific” expeditions.

The Australian branch of Humane Society International (HSI) will on Wednesday ask the federal court in Sydney to find Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese company that organises the hunts, in contempt of a 2008 ruling that banned the whaling fleet from hunting in an area of the Southern Ocean that Australia recognises as a whale sanctuary.

Japan, however, does not recognise the sanctuary and has continued to hunt in the area over the past several years, although it has not killed a single whale there since the international court of justice (ICJ) rejected Japanese claims in March last year that “lethal sampling” was necessary to conduct scientific research into whale populations.

Although the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986, Japan had permission to kill a certain number of whales every year for what it called scientific research, with the meat sold legally on the open market.

After initially agreeing to comply with last year’s landmark ICJ judgment in the Hague, Japan appears poised to defy the court and resume the hunts early next year.

HSI is launching its challenge to Kyodo Senpaku seven years after the federal court found Japan in breach of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and instructed it to halt whaling in the area.

The group says Japan has killed “tens, if not hundreds” of whales in the sanctuary since the injunction. “Whales are protected under Australian law, and we want to see that law upheld,” said Jess Harwood, HIS Australia’s biodiversity programme officer.

Read on ...

Japan to redesign Antarctic whale hunt after UN court ruling

By Shigemi SATO1 hour ago

Tokyo (AFP) - Japan said Friday it would redesign its controversial Antarctic whaling mission in a bid to make it more scientific, after a United Nations court ruled it was a commercial hunt masquerading as research.

The bullish response, which could see harpoon ships back in the Southern Ocean next year, sets Tokyo back on a collision course with environmentalists.

Campaigners had hailed the decision by the International Court of Justice, with hopes that it might herald the end of a practice they view as barbaric.

"We will carry out extensive studies in cooperation with ministries concerned to submit a new research programme by this autumn to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), reflecting the criteria laid out in the verdict," said Yoshimasa Hayashi, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

Japan, a member of the IWC, has hunted whales under a loophole allowing for lethal research. It has always maintained that it was intending to prove the whale population was large enough to sustain commercial hunting.

Continued

Whale hunting: 'It is like killing an ox'

Whale hunters tend to shy away from publicity because of the controversy surrounding their profession. But the crew of the Jan Bjorn in Norway - a country whose fishermen kill around 500 minke whales a year for commercial purposes - agreed to let us join them on a hunting trip.

Boom! The shock of the cannon judders through the old boat.

It's a hit.

The minke is motionless maybe 30 yards away, the rope attached to the harpoon trailing in the water. The skipper, Jan, strains his small frame to haul in the catch.

It does not give an inch. So Fred lends his considerable bulk to the task. He turns to me with a flicker of a grin.

"Now the work begins," he says.

Fred is a paramedic by day. "Whaling is like a vacation," he told me one afternoon as we sat in the crow's nest, scanning the sea for tell-tale puffs of vapour.

The International Whaling Commissionintroduced a ban on commercial whaling in 1986

It was a beautiful day to be out in the fjords. There were no clouds to muzzle the ferocious mountains guarding the coast of Lofoten, in the far north of Norway, and no wind to ripple the water.

Continued

Iceland to resume hunt of endangered Fin whales

Conservationists Urge EU and US Governments to Intervene

April 2012. Conservation and animal welfare groups have expressed concern over news that Iceland's hunt of endangered Fin whales will resume this summer.

The Icelandic newspaper Skessuhorn reported that it had "reliable evidence" Fin whaling will begin again, after being shut down last summer due to the impacts of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although Kristján Loftsson, director of Hvalur, would not confirm, the paper claimed it had evidence that whaling will begin in June and is likely to last for three months.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) are urging European and US leaders to take strong diplomatic actions to end Iceland's continued and expanding whaling.

2000 tonnes of whale meat exported
Clare Perry, EIA senior campaigner, said: "Iceland has exported almost 2,000 tonnes of whale meat to Japan in recent years. The Icelandic whaling company Hvalur is deliberately growing an export market for an endangered species which is protected by two international agreements to which Iceland is signatory. We are calling on the EU and US to take urgent steps to end this rogue whaling."

Annual quota of 150-170 Fin whales & 216 Minke whales
Iceland has engaged in commercial whaling for years in defiance of the international moratorium agreed to by the International Whaling Commission in 1982. Hvalur has an annual quota of 150-170 endangered Fin whales. Iceland's annual Minke whale hunt is also expected to resume soon, with a quota of 216 animals.

"Iceland's commercial slaughter of Minke whales - like the Fin whale hunts - is cruel and unnecessary," said Vanessa Williams-Grey of WDCS. "Much of the Minke whale meat on sale in Iceland is consumed by tourists, including from the UK, US and Germany, who adopt a ‘when in Rome' attitude on holiday, despite the fact that few Icelanders consume Minke whale meat on a regular basis. Until last autumn, Iceland allowed Minke whale meat to be sold in Keflavik airport's departure area, even though most countries prohibit its import and could prosecute those importing whale meat."

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/iceland-fin-whales.html

The ballad of Old Tom (via CFZ Australia)

17th September
On today's Sydney Morning Herald website is this engrossing story about a killer whale that forged an unlikely alliance with a group of Australian whale hunters.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/the-king-of-the-killers-20100916-15er7.html

Eighty years ago this week - on Thursday, September 18, 1930 - The Sydney Morning Herald reported the death of one of the most eccentric celebrities of NSW. The body of ''Old Tom'' was found washed ashore near Eden. The paper described him as ''the king of the far-famed pack of Twofold Bay killers'' and ''the last of his tribe''.

The story, ''King of the Killers'', said, ''For over 100 years he and others of the pack, at one time numbering as many as 30'' rendered an enormous service to the community by intercepting migrating whales and trapping them in the bay.

Since the 1840s, the whalers had abided by what locals call ''the law of the tongue''. When the killer whales had helped them with a kill, the whalers would tie the carcass to a buoy overnight allowing the orcas to take their feed.

Both benefited, Smith explains, because the killer whales only ate the lips and the tongue - the keenest meat on a baleen whale, leaving the whalers to harvest the profitable blubber and whalebone later.