Japan’s New Whaling ‘Mother Ship’ To Launch Despite Falling Demand for Whale Meat
The whaling company’s president hopes the ship will “pass on our whaling culture to the next generation”.
Credit: Facebook/Mark Votier
The construction of a new whaling “mother ship” has been announced in Japan, amid a declining interest in whale meat among the population.
Japan-based whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha says its new vessel will be capable of sailing for 60 days and travel distances of up to 13,000km.
The so-called “mother ship” will adopt the 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 freezing and storage.
It’s 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, explained to the press.
Just last month, the company made global headlines with a separate announcement for its new whale meat vending machines, which dispense the whaling firm’s whale sashimi, whale steak, and whale bacon.
Whilst the Japanese government has issued assurances that it has not provided financial support for the new mother ship, it is said to maintain the stance that eating whale is a so-called ‘cherished’ part of Japan’s culture. Yet consumption of the delicacy has steadily declined since the 1960s, with whale meat consumption totalling 1,000 tonnes in 2021, in comparison to 2.6 million tonnes for chicken, according to Reuters.
"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.
While these latest campaigns could inspire a new generation of whale meat enthusiasts, they could also be the last-ditch attempts at relevancy from a fading industry.
Whaling Around the World
Japan, alongside Norway and Iceland are the only countries where commercial whale hunting still exists.
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.
Other countries permit the hunt 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.
Signs of Change
However, there are signs of change. It’s estimated that over 1,500 fin and minke whales have been killed in Iceland since the country resumed commercial whaling in 2003, but now Iceland is set to end whaling from 2024 amid falling demand for whale meat.
Despite annual quotas allowing for hundreds of whales to be legally hunted each year, Iceland has had no major whale hunts for the last three years, with only one whale killed in that timeframe. A combination of factors, including the rising costs of both the hunt itself and the export of the meat, and the fact that tourists are opting to go whale watching rather than wanting to eat them as a delicacy, means the industry has struggled with falling profits and waning public support.
“There are few justifications to authorise the whale hunt beyond 2024,” which is when current quotas would need renewing, Svandis Svavarsdóttir, a member of the Left Green party, told press in Iceland.
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