Global outrage as Japan’s new whaling ‘mother ship’ ready to set sail
The whaling industry hopes that the new $47M vessel will help create more consumer demand for whale meat.
A stock image of a whaling ship.
Japan’s new whaling ‘mother ship’ is set to sail on its first voyage later this month as the industry hopes to inspire new demand for whale meat.
The ship, named Kangei Maru, will be capable of sailing for months at a time and travel distances of over 8,000 miles.
The vessel adopts the mother ship hunting process, in which a fleet of smaller boats are used to catch the whales, before their bodies are loaded on to the mother ship for carving, freezing, and storage.
The 9,300-ton vessel was built by private company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha at a cost of over $47 million, and is part of the company’s wider push to spark a renewed interest in Japan for whale meat. “Unless a new mother ship is built, we cannot pass on our whaling culture to the next generation,” the company’s president, Hideki Tokoro, previously explained to the press.
The new ship will aim to increase the country’s annual haul of whales, with last year’s catch figures including 83 minke, 187 Bryde’s, and 24 Sei whales.
Ahead of the Kangei Maru’s maiden voyage, the Japanese government announced this week that it will add large fin whales to its list of commercial whaling species. Fin whales are the second largest animal on the planet, and the species is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“This is an appalling step backwards and the latest desperate effort by the Government of Japan to stimulate an almost non-existent consumer demand for whale meat in Japan, in order to justify having built a new whale-killing factory ship, at taxpayers’ expense, which could tie Japan into decades more of this destructive, unsustainable, inhumane and outdated industry”, said Clare Perry, Senior Ocean Adviser at the Environmental Investigation Agency.
Falling Demand for Whale Meat
Consumption of the delicacy has steadily declined since the 1960s, with Japan’s annual whale meat consumption now ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes each year. This figure is less than 1 percent of what the country was consuming back in 1960, reports national press.
Animal welfare groups have said that the Japanese government’s stance still regards eating whale meat as a so-called ‘cherished’ part of Japan’s culture.
"Most Japanese people have never ever tried it. So how can it be something you call a nationwide culture if nobody's really participating in it?", Katrin Matthes, head of Japan policy for Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), told Reuters.
A campaign poster from Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Credit: Whale and Dolphin Conservation
While the new whaling ship could inspire a new generation of whale meat enthusiasts, it could also be seen as a last-ditch attempt at relevancy from a fading industry.
Whaling Around the World
Japan, along with Norway and Iceland, are the only countries in the world where commercial whale hunting is considered legal.
After formally objecting to the global moratorium on commercial whaling, Norway has allowed commercial whaling to take place since 1993. During this time, over 14,000 minke whales have been killed, with the majority exported to Japan. The hunts even continued in the peak of the global pandemic: the Norwegian government deemed seal and whale hunting “essential” operations during the country’s strict lockdown measures and permitted whalers to slaughter over 500 whales in 2020.
The Norwegian hunts are particularly damaging to conservation efforts, as around 70 percent of the whales killed are female - many of whom are pregnant. This is because female mink are easier to catch, as they are slower than their male counterparts, and tend to swim closer to the coast for energy and security reasons.
Meanwhile in Iceland, it’s estimated that over 1,500 fin and minke whales have been killed since the country resumed commercial whaling in 2003.
There are also other countries which permit the hunting of smaller-sized whales. Particularly gruesome hunts include the Faroe Islands’ annual ‘Grindadrap’ - translated as ‘the murder of whales’ - where fishermen drive entire pods of whales and dolphins to the beaches, before the marine animals are beaten and killed with clubs, knives and spears. Each year, the sea turns red with blood from the hundreds of butchered animals.
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