Science&Tech Japan considers whale hunt again Posted on December 20, 2018 2 min read Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Japanese want to be able to hunt whales again. But within the International Whaling Commission there is a prohibition on commercial whaling and so the country is looking at how it can get out of regulations imposed by IWC. The government would make a decision by the end of the year, reports the Japanese news agency Kyodo today on the basis of anonymous sources. According to a spokesperson for the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries, no decision has yet been made, “but all options are being studied”. In the past, the country also threatened to step out of the International Whaling Commission. Japan would mainly hunt in its own waters. Hunting for whales in Arctic waters is excluded, it sounds. According to the country, the hunt is defensible because the whale population has risen sharply. It seems to be partially true, as whales have rebound from decades of over-whaling. However there is nothing ‘defensible’ as whales do not generally endanger fleet and fishing operations. The only reason for Japanese whaling is of cultural basis: the nation considers whale meat as a delicacy. Which is not, to be true. The moratorium on commercial whaling has been in force since 1986. Japan has killed animals in recent years, but officially “for scientific reasons”. Scientific results were never presented, as far as we know. Maybe it was of culinary sort and were not published in an academic press.
Aybek Barysov, Gulmira Wakhitova and Kanat Ibraev among founders of Qazaqstanda Jasalğan economic movement
Aybek Barysov, Gulmira Wakhitova and Kanat Ibraev among founders of Qazaqstanda Jasalğan economic movement