SHIMONOSEKI, Japan (5 July 2002) -- An increasingly defiant and hostile Japan has announced it will target endangered Sei whales for the first time in 26 years. Japan's commercial whaling fleet left Shimonoseki port under the guise of "scientific research" that will provide "research specimens" for tens of thousands of local research laboratories commonly known as sushi bars. The government plans to kill 260 whales on behalf of Japan's small but powerful fishing industry that contributes heavily to the campaigns of many leading right-wing Japanese politicians. The hunt comes just a few weeks after Japan and its Caribbean lackeys – Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and St. Vincent - failed to lift the ban on commercial whaling at the annual International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting. Five commercial whaling vessels will hunt in the northwest Pacific over the next three months. Japan describes whales as the "cockroaches of the sea" and claims its whaling activities are environmentally correct because edible fish stocks must be protected from "overeating" by whales. Japan blames the whaling moratorium for the 50% decline in fish catches over the past 20 years and the decline of its whaling industry. "Sei whales are much larger than other whales, such as the minkes, and eat more fish," said Takanori Nagatomo of the Japanese Fisheries Agency. "It is impossible to know their impact on the marine environment without knowing how much, and what they eat." But conservationists say Japan, which consumes ocean resources far more extensively than other countries, has overfished popular consumption species and overhunted the great whales. | | Fed up with Caribbean nations that sell their IWC votes to Japan's commercial whaling agenda? ACT NOW and make a difference! "The pro-whaling rhetoric from Japan's government-controlled information industry is simply ludicrous and does not reflect the will of the Japanese people," says Evan T. Allard, President of Cyber Diver Society (CDS). "Even Japanese school children know that killing whales is not the solution to overfishing, and the vast majority of adults are not persuaded by government-orchestrated mass media campaigns designed to equate whaling with national pride while ignoring the extreme threat to national health of whale meat consumption." Fed up with Caribbean nations that sell their IWC votes to Japan's commercial whaling agenda? ACT NOW and make a difference! © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORKSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
