Japan defiant against whaling protests

GREENPEACE displayed a dead whale outside the Japanese Embassy in Berlin yesterday to highlight its claim that Japanese hunters have killed at least 123 whales in the icy seas off the coast of Antarctica since the start of the whaling season this year.

The dead whale had been washed up on the shore of the Baltic Sea.

Meanwhile, a fisheries official said Japan would continue its whale-hunting programme despite mounting international protest.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency received a note protesting against Japan’s whaling activities, signed by 17 countries, including Ireland, spokesman Hideki Moronoki said.

But he said Japan is entitled to a yearly catch under international whaling regulations.

Japan is expected to kill 935 Minke whales in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary over the first four months of the year in what the country says is scientific research.

Meanwhile, the leader of a two-ship Greenpeace expedition stalking Japanese whalers said his ships had disrupted several hunts.

The saboteurs were currently off the coast of Antarctica, between South Africa and Australia, Shane Rattenbury said.

Greenpeace was targeting this particular hunt because Japan doubled its quota of Minke whales this year and because the area was considered a sanctuary.

“This is supposed to be a whale sanctuary and the Japanese government is the only one in the world which is defying the ban,” Rattenbury said.

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986, in line with an international moratorium, but began catching whales again the following year for “scientific research”. Critics say the whale meat ends up in Japanese restaurants.

Last June Japan announced plans to double its annual catch of Minke whales to 850. It also has a quota of 10 Fin whales, the second biggest whale after the Blue whale.