Glen Inwood recently sent me some books about whaling from a Japanese perspective. They are so interesting with a lot of history. Given many readers of this blog have a particular interest in whaling, I plan to post some extracts from these books over the next few months. Here's the first installment:
"Since time immemorial, the Japanese people have been religiously taught to avoid eating four-legged animals - a teaching that has its genesis in the influence of the Buddhist faith. When Buddhism was introduced from the Asian continent well over a thousand years ago, the Prince Regent Shotoku, who ruled the nation at the time, quickly became a devoted follower of the new faith. He promoted a marriage of Bhuddism with the indigenous Japanese religion, Shinto.
After Prince Shotoku, there was a successful coup bringing Emperor Tenchi to power, and he wasted no time in declaring Buddhism the national religion. In the seventh century, Emperor Tenmu prohibited the eating of land animals entirely. The whale, however, lived in the ocean and was regarded as a fish, and therefore notably not included in the prohibition.
Centuries after this decree, in 1687, the Shogun Tsunayoshi introduced a special mercy law protecting animals. He loved dogs to the point of madness, and all animals were further protected by this law. However, even under this Shogun, whales were not protected.
Moreover, because this law made it harder to procure animal meat, the whale found itself even more sought after as a crucial source of protein in the Japanese diet. It was during this era that net whaling developed, and whale meat consequently became a more regular feature of the Japanese diet."
(From Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki, pg. 54)
And here's a link to a recent news story with Japanese surfers complaining not enough was done to save stranded melon-head whales.
ive been learning about whales at school as a project and ive found some information that makes me ask , , they kill the animals for reseach but if there are no animals left , how there gone , they say they use the money from there food restanunte , to scienceist to put towrads there reaseach on whales but if there are no whales left they wont be able to do there reseah , there behavour is rong and nasty , over years the population haS GONE down thousand for whales soon they be all gone so japness not saying it all of you but the ones that go out for jobs of whatever the case thInk about what you are doing and if you reaLLY need to do this becuase from where im standing you dont ,. i come from australis and would love something done about it if you dont u should thankyou and i wanna undersatnd why people hunt whales for the reall reason not the exsuce thanks bree
STOP WHALING YOU BASTARDS
Hello, Nick here
I'm doing an assignment on Japanese whaling and the JARPA 1 & 2 programs. i was wondering why it is necessary for the whales to be killed to study them. surely you can gain a greater insight into the lives and habits of these animals by observing and tracking them instead of killing them. research i found says that tissue samples are needed to determine the age of the whales, which i can understand, but you dont have to kill the whale just to get a tissue sample surely. and there is also the question of how useful the data that is being gathered really is, for whale age isn't exactly of vital importance is it. if i am wrong or have been mislead on any of these points i am happy to be corrected, and would appreciate the help additional information provides for my research assignment. i would also like to repeat my request for imformation about the necessity of killing them to study them. thanks
Hi I am a student teacher wanting to create a social studies unit where children make up their own mind about weather it is right or wrong and what (if anything) needs to be done. Can you provide some links, books and other resources for the pro whaling side of the argument thati can use?
It appears that I need to clarify my last post. Here goes..........
I used the quote from Toennessen & Johnsen's book in an attempt to make several points. These are:
1.It's a really good source of information on modern whaling and well worth reading if you're interested in the topic. It's generally unbiased, as far as I can see.
2.Contrary to popular belief, Japanese whaling expeditions were working in the Antarctic prior to the outbreak of World War II.
3.Also contrary to popular belief, whaling nations were making efforts to instigate international controls on whaling prior to the IWC coming into being post-WWII. These efforts were frustrated in several ways, one being Japanese intransigence.
4.There was a perception amongst whaling nations in the latter part of the 1930s that ongoing declines of Antarctic populations were being driven by the approach that the Japanese were taking to whaling - killing species that other nations had agreed shouldn't be being hunted, killing lactating blue whales, starting their season earlier that what others had agreed to, things like that. Given what we now know of the population biology of baleen whales, the perception that the Japanese were solely responsible for ongoing declines was probably wrong. That they were primarily responsible for the ongoing declines in the latter 1930s may well be right.
5.The actions of Japanese Antarctic expeditions was considered so bad that three whaling nations (the UK, Norway and Germany) worked together, using diplomatic channels, to object to the Japanese actions. This is despite the diplomatic tensions existing between the UK and Germany - World War II broke out a couple of months later. Clearly folks engaged in international negotiations on whaling management back them thought something was going wrong.
6.An additional point, as there seems some confusion as to what I was getting at: the original declines of humpbacks and blues (the first species well & truly nailed in Antarctic whaling) were mostly due to Norwegian and British whaling expeditions.
Then, I made a crack about how there was a Japanese tradition of being obstructionist at international whaling meetings. I thought that the question that this raises - is tradition, of itself, a sufficient justification for peoples' actions - was self evident. Maybe it isn't.
Hopefully this clarifies things.
Re this comment of Jennifer's:
I would probably like to do the next post on whaling on earliest records of whaling for Japan and other countries. If anyway has some good information on this could they please email me before the weekend.
Read the appropriate entry in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Should be a good start.
Discarding the carcass could lend some support to the japanese whaling-for-scientific-purposes-not-consumption ruse. It would also eliminate the high (tax-payer funded) subsidised costs of running factory processing ships and storing the growing stockpiles of whalemeat in Japan. Where are the vociferous free marketeers when you need them to argue against govt spending? (Their party line is inconsistent.)
Peter C makes some good points.
I would probably like to do the next post on whaling on earliest records of whaling for Japan and other countries. If anyway has some good information on this could they please email me before the weekend.
I would also be really interested in a guest post from Peter C around his quote: 'None of the other whaling nations was in any doubt that the real reason for declining stocks was the ruthless catching undertaken by the Japanese, starting as they did four to five weeks before the others, ignoring the ban on the catching of humpbacks or minimum size limits. Germany, Britain and Norway despatched notes to this on Japan at the same time' (p 469).
It would be good to get some supporting evidence for this in terms of how many whales were being caught where and by whom?
The Japanese seem to blame the Americans for the decline - suggesting they caught the larger numbers and discarded most of the carcass.
Oh for heavens sake.. .. a boat load of international marine biologists and they haven't done anything? Let's at least see the report. You guys were marvelling at their krill research a week ago citing good news. They clearly have population data.
What do we learn from our Japanese friends - that whales take 20 minutes to drown when you harpoon them. And gee they did 10 years ago too. And before that. Whaling is just a political need for them to assert themselves. They don't even like eating the stuff.