The Japanese have this culture of saving face, but in the case in point, this changing of the deck chairs on the whaling fleet changes very little in real terms. That is increasing numbers of whales are going to die for commercial purposes under the thin guise of unneeded, unwanted and spurious research. Worse still the Japanese have already targeted protected and endangered species and intend killing 50 Humpback & 50 Fin whales on their next series of whaling trips.
Japanese scientific whaling has been supplying around 1 000- 2 000 tonnes of whale products from captured minke whales
Balaenoptera acutorostrata and
Balaenoptera bonaerensis annually as a "by-product" which, in fact, subsidizes in part the scientific whaling operation. This is currently the main source where new whale products from species covered by the IWC moratorium could be added to the commercial market in Japan (another possible source is those whales taken incidentally, such as entangled in trap nets, or stranded).
Nissui , along with the other shareholders in the company "Kyodo Senpaku", has given away its shares. The 24th March press release from Kyodo Senpaku release includes: "the shares of our company will be transferred to several public-interest corporations including the ICR, so that the share ownership will better reflect our activities". The ICR is the Japanese Research Institute that chartered Kyodo Senpaku's Ships and crews to carry out whaling
"
Under the new regime, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd are committed to redouble thier efforts so that they can better contribute to the further development of the research and promoting sustainable utilization of whale resources"
The Institute of Cetacean Research was founded in 1987 as a zaidan hojin - a non-profit organisation funded by donations. Start-up costs were met by
Kyodo Senpaku (about 1,250 mil. yen; $9.6 mil.)
So Japanese Whaling Companies play semantics with ownership and everyone rolls over and claims "victory" for the environmentalists and there's no further discussion???
Hello?
Give me strength