Environmentalists reacted with outrage on Thursday to news that Japan plans to hunt another whale species. The country wants to kill 50 Sei whales in the North Pacific as part of its controversial scientific whaling programme.
The WWF, which called the plan an 鈥渙utrage鈥�, says latest estimates put the population of Sei whales in the North Pacific at 9000. It is listed as an endangered species. Japan also wants to increase its annual take of northern minke whales from 100 to 150.
The news apparently leaked from the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission. The body imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling 16 years ago, but allows limited captures of whales for scientific research.
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The director-general of the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo, Seiji Ohsumi, defended the plan saying it was 鈥渂ased on urgent scientific need to collect data on the competition between whales and fisheries.鈥� He said past research suggested whales consume more marine resources than humans.
Japan currently catches minke, Bryde鈥檚 and sperm whales in the North Pacific. 鈥淲e need to include Sei whales since they have the second highest biomass in the region, following sperm whales,鈥� Ohsumi said.
The extra minke whales would be taken by Japanese island whaling communities as part of research into the impact of whales on coastal fisheries.
Open question
Most conservationists dismiss Japanese claims that the scientific whaling yields useful science. However Russell Leaper, a marine biology consultant to the IWC based in Edinburgh, told New Scientist last year: 鈥淚t鈥檚 an open question right now whether whales damage fisheries. But even if they are eating fish, it doesn鈥檛 mean there is direct competition.鈥�
Japan鈥檚 plans will be discussed by the IWC in the run-up to its next full meeting, in the Japan whaling town of Shimonoseki in May. There the IWC is expected to be under pressuring from whaling nations, including Norway and Japan, to ease or end the moratorium.
WWF UK鈥檚 species campaigner Stuart Chapman said the Sei 鈥渋s yet to recover from past whaling excesses and remains endangered. This plan gives two fingers to conservation and to the IWC.鈥�
But the IWC has no legal power to block Japan鈥檚 new proposals. On past form, whatever happens in May and regardless of international opinion, Japan is likely to proceed with its expanded scientific whaling programme.