The owners of Japan’s whaling fleet plan to sell up and do something less bloody with their money. But that doesn’t let whales off the hook.
Last week, the fleet returned with its largest kill for 20 years, totalling 850 minke and 10 fin whales. Even before the whales were brought ashore, the three shareholding companies of Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha – the only firm contracted to carry out scientific whaling by Japan’s Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) – said they were preparing to give up ownership of the fleet, apparently in a bid to distance themselves from the industry in the face of growing public opposition.
Far from being a victory for anti-whaling campaigners, some conservationists say this will only make the situation worse. That’s because the companies plan to transfer ownership to the ICR and other public interest companies in the next few weeks – to the Japanese government, in other words. The government would be less susceptible to pressure from anti-whaling groups, says Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international campaigning organisation.
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What is more, at least one of the shareholding companies, Maruha, the world’s largest seafood company, will still profit from whaling through a subsidiary that will carry on purchasing and processing whale meat, says Perry.
The news comes amid fears that pro-whaling nations will be majority members of the International Whaling Commission when it next meets in June, and might seek to reintroduce commercial whaling.
