Graphic Video Shows Minke Whale Drown To Death For 20 Minutes On Fishing Boat
Undercover drone footage highlights the cruel reality of ‘bycatch’ - non-target sea animals 'inadvertently’ caught in huge fishing nets.
The minke whale trapped between two fishing boats. Credit: LIA
Shocking undercover footage of a minke whale drowning to death for 20 minutes on a fishing boat has reignited calls for more to be done to protect ocean life.
The minke whale had been caught ‘unintentionally’ in a fishing net, where the trapped whale languished for 19 days.
Originally a crew had attempted to release the whale, but their effort proved futile.
“One guy tried for 10 minutes … but they stopped trying”, Ren Yabuki, the head of Japanese animal rights NGO Life Investigation Agency and who filmed the drone footage, told the BBC.
Yabuki suspected that the fishermen “did not want to open the net because inside there were too many fish”.
The whale was caught in this net and held there for 19 days. Credit: LIA/Dolphin Project
Campaigners like Yabuki continued to call for the fishing company that owned the net to release the whale. But on 11 January, it became clear that the minke whale won’t be rescued.
Yabuki watched and filmed as “two boats manoeuvred the whale so it was trapped between them”. The fisherman then caught and held the struggling whale by its tail, forcing its head underwater.
Yabuki says the drowning whale struggled for 20 mins.
Reports say that the whale has since been butchered and their meat already sold in supermarkets.
Under Japanese law, there are strict quotas in place to limit the amount of whales hunted or caught as ‘bycatch’ each year. This drowned minke will be one of the 37 who can legally be caught as bycatch in 2021.
Whaling, whether through organized hunts or as bycatch, remains controversial and is responsible for the slaughter of thousands of whales around the world. Japan and Norway are among the countries that have even allowed whale hunts to continue as normal despite lockdown measures to allow only ‘essential activities’.
But ‘bycatch’ is a global problem. It is estimated that global bycatch is around 10% of the world’s catch, with some fisheries discarding more fish at sea than what they bring to port. And thousands of whales, dolphins and turtles are among the sea life injured or killed as a result of the fishing industry’s bycatch.
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