Japan Has Become the Ocean Fool on the Issue of Whaling

by Captain Paul Watson

 

Japan has fooled all of the nations some of the time and still fools some of the nations some of the time but they can no longer fool all of the nations all of the time. Japanese "scientific" whaling is a fraud. It is a lie and it is a barbaric, inhumane flaunting of international law. Japanese whaling has been found to be in contempt of the Australian Federal Court. It has been condemned as a fraud by the International Court of Justice and it has not been sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission. And now it looks like the New York Times has made their position clear on the bogus research activities of the Japanese whalers. 

 

There will be no whale slaughter for the 2014/2015 season. Japan has set a target for 333 whales for the 2015/2016 season. They have not been able to get even that number due to interventions by Sea Shepherd Global ships over the last few years. They need at least 600 whales to break even so mass subsidies will continue to support this pathetic industry at the cost to Japanese taxpayers and to the shame of all Japanese citizens.

Japan want to continue killing whales for scientific research that simply is nothing more than research in name for the purpose of providing whale meat to people who do not wish to eat it and thus it is stored in warehouses for years at great expense with the hope that the people will change their minds forgetting that the only reason Japanese people ate whale meat in the first place is that after WW II they did not have any choice. It beat boiling leather shoes for soup.

Whaling and the dolphin slaughter are turning Japan into an embarrassment in the international community, a nation that kills what most of the rest of the world cherishes and respects.
People like Joji Morishita need to realize that Japan is no longer a nation of desperate blubber chewers. Japanese people are becoming far too sophisticated and aware of the serious ecological and conservation issues in the world and the Institute for Cetacean Research simply does not represent modern Japanese views.

Whaling is a dead industry. The problem is that entrenched Japanese bureaucrats and politicians have not accepted the inevitable.

In order to resume commercial whaling the factory ship Nisshin Maru needs to be replaced. This will be an investment of between $100 and $200 million dollars. This will be difficult to justify so that explains the heavy lobbying of the politicians.

Will they get it? I would not be surprised. Politicians everywhere love to waste money in exchange for a kick-back.