Japan’s Fisheries Agency seeks to allow commercial catching of fin whales

• Japan’s Fisheries Agency has proposed adding fin whales along with three smaller whale species to its commercial whaling program.
• The proposal comes five years after Japan resumed commercial whaling within its exclusive economic zone.
• Anti-whaling protests have declined since Japan moved to limited commercial whaling within its coasts.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency on Thursday proposed a plan to allow the hunting of fin whales, in addition to the three small whale species currently allowed for commercial whaling around the country’s coasts.

The proposal comes five years after Japan resumed commercial whaling within its exclusive economic zone after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission in July 2019. The move marks the end of 30 years of what Japan calls “research whaling,” which has been criticized by conservationists as a cover for commercial whaling. Banned by IWC in 1988.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the constituency is traditionally known for whaling, and that the government supports the sustainable use of whales as part of Japan’s traditional food culture and would encourage this industry. He said he plans to do so.

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Hayashi told reporters, “Whales are an important food resource, and like other marine resources, I believe they should be used sustainably based on scientific evidence.” “It is also important to inherit Japan’s traditional food culture.”

The Fisheries Agency announced Thursday that it has begun soliciting public comments on the proposed revisions to the Fisheries Resources Management Plan. The public comment process ends June 5, and officials expect the plan to be approved at the next review meeting in mid-June, officials said.

Officials said the agency decided to propose adding fin whales to the list of permitted harvests after stock surveys confirmed that the population of fin whales in the North Pacific Ocean had recovered sufficiently.

The plan is not intended to increase the supply of whale meat, and whalers who hunt fin whales do not necessarily have to meet quotas, said an agency official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. As stated in the conditions.

This year, the agency has set a quota of 379 whales for three other whale species.

The commercial whaling industry in Japan’s EEZ caught 294 minke, Bryde’s and sei whales last year, less than 80% of their quota, and based on research plans they had previously caught 294 minke, Bryde’s and sei whales in the Antarctic and Northwestern Pacific Oceans. That’s less than what they were capturing.

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Japanese whaling has long been a source of controversy and attacks from conservationists, but the backlash has increased since Japan halted much-criticized research whaling in the Antarctic in 2019 and returned to commercial whaling limited to Japan’s coasts. The whaling protests have largely subsided. Japan’s whale research outside the EEZ is limited to non-lethal research.

Whale meat consumption in Japan was an affordable source of protein during Japan’s post-World War II period of malnutrition, with annual consumption reaching over 230,000 tons in the early 1960s. According to Fisheries Agency statistics, whale meat was quickly replaced by other meats, and supply has declined to about 2,000 tons in recent years.

Whaling authorities want to increase that amount to around 5,000 tonnes to keep the industry afloat, which has begun to promote the consumption of whale meat. Whaling company Kyodo Ship launched a whale meat vending machine last year. The company also completed the construction of a new $48 million tube whale maru, a 9,300-ton mothership, as its management pledged to use it for sustainable commercial whaling.