(Tokyo) Japan has expanded its commercial whaling to also target fin whales, the second-largest living mammal on the planet, a move criticized by the Australian government on Thursday.
Japan, one of only three countries in the world to hunt whales for commercial purposes, alongside Norway and Iceland, has therefore added the fin whale to its list of targeted cetaceans which already includes the minke whale, the Bryde’s whale and the sei whale.
“Our main justification is that there are sufficient resources” of finned whales, a fisheries agency official told AFP on Thursday of the program to hunt 59 this year.
Fin whales are considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Japan’s decision, made official on Wednesday, has alarmed animal rights activists.
Australia is “deeply disappointed,” its Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said in a statement. “Australia opposes all commercial whaling and urges all countries to end this practice,” she said.
The official announcement comes after prominent anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, 73, was arrested in Greenland last month. The American-Canadian founder of the Sea Shepherd group was remanded in custody on an international arrest warrant issued by Tokyo.
On July 21, the activist was arrested on his ship that had just docked in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, to refuel in preparation for “intercepting” Japan’s new whaling factory ship in the North Pacific, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) reported at the time. Japan has made a formal request for Watson’s extradition, according to the Danish Justice Ministry.
Japan has hunted whales for centuries, with their meat being a key source of protein in the years following World War II.
After a global moratorium on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the country continued to hunt whales for “scientific” purposes, killing hundreds in the Antarctic and the North Pacific.
Widely criticized abroad for this hypocrisy, Japan left the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 2019 to free itself from the moratorium and resumed openly commercial whaling in its territorial waters and its exclusive economic zone, that is to say its own maritime space.
Japan killed 294 whales last year.
A panel of experts commissioned by the Agriculture Ministry said in June that Japanese fishermen should be allowed to hunt finned whales. Agriculture Minister Tetsushi Sakamoto then described the whales as “an important food resource.”