Article: Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale Hunt

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Article: Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale

Hunt

 

>Pacific News Service

>

>Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale Hunt

>

>News Feature/Commentary, Christopher Reed,

>New America Media, Jan 24, 2006

>

>Editor's Note: Japan may use science or tradition to

defend its

whaling, but

>whale meat is almost never on the menu in the nation.

>

>TOKYO, Japan--Environmental opponents of Japanese

whaling in

Antarctica,

>where recent ocean confrontations have become

dangerous, are

increasingly

>reminded of Oscar Wilde's famous dismissal of the

tally-ho types who

went

>fox hunting in Britain: " The unspeakable in pursuit

of the uneatable. "

>

>Hostility to Japan reached a new level on Jan. 19,

when Greenpeace

activists

>dumped a 20-ton, 56-foot fin whale corpse outside the

Japanese embassy

in

>Berlin. They were making the point that cadavers like

this mammal that

had

>died naturally in the Baltic are available for

" scientific research "

--

>Japan's rationale for its current four-month,

southern-sea hunt for

the

>warm-blooded ocean titans.

>

>Up until their whale-dumping protest in Berlin, two

boats crewed by

>Greenpeace activists clashed with Japanese vessels in

Antarctic waters

for

>three weeks. Deadly harpoons narrowly missed

protesters and vessels

collided

>amid fears of serious injury or death. The New

Zealand air force has

flown

>over the site and the Australian government is

closely watching.

>

>By continuing whaling in the name of science, Japan

avoids the

International

>Whaling Commission's 20-year worldwide ban on the

commercial industry.

But

>this season already, the Japanese whaler Nisshin

Maru's slaughter of

over

>125 Antarctic minke whales, with a target of over 900

in all, has

caused 17

>nations to demand that it cease its bloody business.

Tokyo has

declined.

>

>Although Norway and Iceland have also done some

whaling, Japan earns

>conservationists' extra wrath because of what, say

activists, is the

dubious

>nature of another of its claims (rather than racism,

which some

Japanese

>have suggested). Japanese like to eat whale flesh,

the argument from

Tokyo

>goes, and have done so for more than 1,000 years.

Unfortunately for

its

>dwindling enthusiasts, these arguments are easily

disproved.

>

>These days, almost no Japanese under the age of 60

eats whale meat; it

was

>only consumed on a large scale during shortages after

the end of the

Pacific

>War in 1945. Where it is available today, customers

are almost

entirely

>elitist gourmets with plenty of money -- or misguided

nationalists.

>

>Undisputed research by a British opinion-poll firm in

1999 found only

1

>percent of Japanese acknowledged eating " kujira no

niku " -- whale meat

--

>even once a month, and 61 percent said the last time

they ate it was

as

>children. My own telephone inquiries at three leading

supermarket

chains

>found not one selling it these days, even canned, and

an Internet

search of

>gourmet restaurants showed it to be rarer than lamb

chops in this

mainly

>fish-eating nation.

>

>One restaurant in Shibuya, Tokyo, called Kujiraya --

" the whale place "

--

>offered five styles of the meat at nearly $60 per

person, and

individual

>steaks at $15 each. In the Shinjuku district at a

restaurant called

>Taruichi, its owner Takashi Sato acknowledged that

his whale meat

dishes

>were continuing a tradition of his father's, but lost

money. Only in

the

>southern island of Kyushu, Japan's historic whaling

location, were

>restaurants that offered the dish commonplace.

>

>A dish available by mail order is whale " bacon " --

the meat is salted,

>smoked and thinly cut -- but that can cost about $150

a pound, way

above the

>choicest beef steak. Eating it raw, sashimi style,

costs $5 for one

>paper-thin slice smaller than a visiting card.

>

>McDonald's in Japan, where fish hamburgers are

popular, need fear no

>competition in taste from the flesh of Balaenopterae.

But an element

of

>nationalism can creep in. Some Japanese, encouraged

by the government

and

>its Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) in Tokyo,

which is also the

>pro-whaling public relations office, regard opponents

as foreign

bullies.

>

>Taruichi's Sato, for instance, proclaimed that

opposition to Japanese

>whaling was " American culinary imperialism, " although

the United

States was

>not among the 17 protesting nations headed by Brazil.

Sato added:

" Telling

>the Japanese not to hunt whales is like telling the

British to stop

drinking

>tea, or denying the French their pate. This is how

you start a war. "

>

>Apart from culinary or cultural reasons, the ICR's

" science "

explanation for

>killing Antarctic minkes is vague; the World Wildlife

Fund describes

it as

> " sham. " The ICR also admits that the whale meat

supplying restaurants

is

>left over from research -- and last year, 20 percent

of the

4,000-tonne

>haul, half this year's expected catch, had to be

frozen and stored

unused.

>

>One ICR research finding might offer a sounder

scientific reason for

Japan's

>unpopular insistence on continuing to kill whales.

The minkes, it

states,

>eat " three to five times " the marine life caught for

human

consumption,

>including popular Japanese fish dishes such as

anchovy, Pacific saury,

cod

>and walleye pollock, all " commercially important

species. "

>

>But as Greenpeace campaigner John Frizell has noted:

" As long as

opponents

>can be presented as international bullies, the

Japanese can keep the

>controversy going. " Perhaps, but not the customers

coming.

>

>PNS contributor Christopher Reed, a former

correspondent for the

London

>Guardian, lives in Japan.

>

>

>

>

 

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