Japan presents its new whaling admiral

Japan, which resumed hunting whales for consumption in 2019 after a 30-year moratorium, now wants to amplify this activity thanks to a new flagship specially built and ready to leave on a mission in May. Franceinfo visited it in preview.

It sits majestically in the port of Shimonoseki, the Japanese whaling capital. THE Kangei Maru is the first whaling flagship built in Japan in 73 years, a completely new building. Yoshihasa Ina is one of the directors of Kyodo Senpaku, the operating company: “It’s a unique whaling flagship that combines a factory ship and a cargo ship. In a sense, you could almost say it’s an experimental ship.”

Up to 800 tonnes of frozen meat

The lower part of this electrically powered building, almost 113 meters long, 21 wide and weighing around 9,200 tonnes, resembles a huge factory workshop. A gigantic door lowers to form a ramp with a slight inclination, at 18 degrees, allowing the loading of very large whales spotted using an on-board drone. Sailor Shimoda’s explanations: “We haul the whale that we have caught up here from the back, then we cut it up directly on site. We plan to hunt 70-tonne fin whales and prepare them here.”

To carve the beast, you need around ten technicians: “We can cut up a whale in about an hour, by hand, with large knives. The pieces are put in bags to be frozen in rapid mode in 6 hours at -40 degrees Celsius. The entire preparation chain mobilizes around 50 people.” The Kangei Maru can hold up to 800 tonnes of frozen meat. The spokesperson for the Japanese government, like other elected officials from the very conservative Liberal Democratic Party in power, welcomes the construction of this new boat, insisting that Japan wants to maintain its tradition of whaling, while respecting catch quotas and without harming the environment, a position contested by environmental organizations.