Founder of Sea Shepherd Arrested in Germany

[smartcooky]

I'm perfectly willing to believe that they have an effect, even a major one - all it means is that I even more wish to see them fail, preferably spectacularly. Bad enough for people to try and do bad things, even worse when they succeed.
I don't see why you'd think so, but whatever.

So, you would be quite happy to allow dozens of Japanese whalers to set off unrestricted and unhindered into the Southern Ocean to mercilessly plunder its resources until they cause the extinction of first the Fin whale, then when that runs out, the next species of whale on the list, until they are all gone?

Is that really what you want?

Well sorry. I can't accept that. I celebrate the success of Sea Shepherd, and long may they continue to harass, harangue and generally make life and difficult as they possibly can for these japanese butchers, and if that means ramming their whaling ships, then so be it.

 

[Damien Evans]

The EEZ only stretches 200 NM from the coast. Doubt there was much, if any, whaling going on within 200 NM of Australia.

 

[smartcooky]

The EEZ only stretches 200 NM from the coast. Doubt there was much, if any, whaling going on within 200 NM of Australia.

 

[Magenta]

The 2013 IFAW report that theprestige linked earlier is worth reading in full. It addresses the following issues (some of which have been have been raised in this thread):

• Taxpayers subsidise money-losing industry
• Demand for whale meat falls while stockpiles grow
• Earthquake relief funds and additional subsidies diverted
• Polls: Indifference to whaling, opposition to funding
• Foreign aid used to buy whaling support
• Scientific whaling is not scientific
• The solution: whale watching not whaling

The Economics of Japanese Whaling [pdf]

Hopefully if they continue to gain more ships themselves and slow the catch more, it will just become totally uneconomic for Japan to keep sending whalers down here, to the point where they simply can't justify the expense.

From the IFAW report:

Following an aborted 2010–11 season, the ICR spent an additional ¥2.28 billion (approximately US$28.55 million) for “research whaling, stabilization promotion, and counter-measure expenses.” These funds were ostensibly used to protect the fleet in the event of further attention from Sea Shepherd or other environmental activists in the Antarctic. Such a massive increase in expenditure might have plunged the ICR deeper into financial trouble; however, the money did not come directly from the organisation’s own budget. Instead, it was diverted in that direction by the government out of the budget for earthquake reconstruction. (p. 10)

 

[PhantomWolf]

Which means bugger all for Japan because they don't acknowledge Australia's claim to Antarctica. You could probably get around it by giving them some of Marie Byrd Land, but that would be a violation of article 4 of the Antarctic Treaty.

So if I don't accept your claim to that bit of land behind your house I can come and fish in the goldfish pond in your backyard?

 

[Wildy]

And that is not actually a true statement.

Of course it's not a true statement. It's called a joke for a reason.

 

[Magenta]

The EEZ only stretches 200 NM from the coast. Doubt there was much, if any, whaling going on within 200 NM of Australia.

Enough that the Australian Federal Court granted an injunction against the Japanese whaling company:

1. The Court declares that the respondent has killed, injured, taken and interfered with Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) and injured, taken and interfered with humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in contravention of sections 229, 229A, 229B and 229C of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth), (the “Act”), and has treated and possessed such whales killed or taken in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in contravention of sections 229D and 230 of the Act, without permission or authorisation under sections 231, 232 or 238 of the Act.

2. The Court orders that the respondent be restrained from killing, injuring, taking or interfering with any Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) or humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, or treating or possessing any such whale killed or taken in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, unless permitted or authorised under sections 231, 232 or 238 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth).

Humane Society International Inc v Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd [2008] FCA 3

Of course, enforcement is another matter:

46. The respondent has, on the evidence, no presence or assets within the jurisdiction. Unless the respondent’s vessels enter Australia, thus exposing themselves to possible arrest or seizure, the applicant acknowledges that there is no practical mechanism by which orders of this Court can be enforced (supplementary submissions, paragraph 36).

 

[Ryokan]

The whale is harpooned and then dragged behind the whaling vessel until its is drowned. The whale dies an extremely painful and very protracted death. It is a cruel, brutal way to kill a defenceless animal.

I know that the "intention" is to kill the whale quickly with the explosive head on the harpoon, but it rarely happens. Most times, the whale drowns.

Evidence, please?

BTW: Japan has not managed to kill their whale quota for a number of years now, and that is thanks directly to the efforts of Sea Shepherd, whose tactics of confronting the whalers, ramming their boats and generally getting in their way. The tactics have never resulted in a human fatality.

And their actions against the Japanese vibrate around the world to the other side, disturbing the Norwegian whalers so much they don't manage to reach their quota either.

As Seismosaurus said, the quota is not a target that the whalers strive to reach. It's a maximum. And currently, and for quite a few years, the quota in both Japan and Norway has been set higher than there is actually a market for.

The Japanese and Norwegian numbers show such similar trends that it's hard to conclude that Sea Shepherd is having a great effect on Japanese whaling. They haven't bothered the Norwegians in years - probably because it didn't gave the same media coverage as they get when bothering the Japanese.

 

[ddt]

The 2013 IFAW report that theprestige linked earlier is worth reading in full. It addresses the following issues (some of which have been have been raised in this thread):

• Taxpayers subsidise money-losing industry
• Demand for whale meat falls while stockpiles grow
• Earthquake relief funds and additional subsidies diverted
• Polls: Indifference to whaling, opposition to funding
• Foreign aid used to buy whaling support
• Scientific whaling is not scientific
• The solution: whale watching not whaling

The Economics of Japanese Whaling [pdf]

Another interesting fact from that report about Japanese demand for whale food: in 2011/2012, the ICR put up some 1,200 tonnes of whale meat for auction. Initially, only 300 kilograms - so only one quarter of one thousands of the total put up for auction - met their reserve price. After they lowered the reserve price, still only some 300 tonnes - one quarter - was sold.

The current total stockpiles in Japan of whale meat are around 5,000 tonnes. If I read it correctly, that corresponds to a catch of around 1,000 (minke) whales, i.e., the Japanese target for one year, as they met until the 2008/2009 season.

 

[Marcus]

Another interesting fact from that report about Japanese demand for whale food: in 2011/2012, the ICR put up some 1,200 tonnes of whale meat for auction. Initially, only 300 kilograms - so only one quarter of one thousands of the total put up for auction - met their reserve price. After they lowered the reserve price, still only some 300 tonnes - one quarter - was sold.

The current total stockpiles in Japan of whale meat are around 5,000 tonnes. If I read it correctly, that corresponds to a catch of around 1,000 (minke) whales, i.e., the Japanese target for one year, as they met until the 2008/2009 season.

That's encouraging. I don't object to the Japanese eating whale meat,
I would just like to see it at a sustainable level. Having one country scarfing down 5,000 tons a year can't be good for population numbers.

 

[Ryokan]

I would just like to see it at a sustainable level. Having one country scarfing down 5,000 tons a year can't be good for population numbers.

As was said, that's 1000 minke whales. 1000 out of a population of well over half a million*. 2000 if you add the Norwegian numbers, though those are just the quotas. For actual whales caught, for Norway and Japan together, it's around 1000.





*Population number from Wikipedia - although they only mention the half million population of the antarctic region. No population number for the arctic region. So it's well over half a million.

 

[Seismosaurus]

So, you would be quite happy to allow dozens of Japanese whalers to set off unrestricted and unhindered into the Southern Ocean to mercilessly plunder its resources until they cause the extinction of first the Fin whale, then when that runs out, the next species of whale on the list, until they are all gone?

Is that really what you want?

Is that what is on offer? Do the Japanese actually want to hunt whale species to extinction? I don't know if they do, but it seems very unlikely to me.

Far more likely is that they want to conduct commercial-type whaling on a sustainable basis. And yes, I would be perfectly happy with that, much as I am perfectly happy with the killing and eating of any animal on the same basis.

Well sorry. I can't accept that. I celebrate the success of Sea Shepherd, and long may they continue to harass, harangue and generally make life and difficult as they possibly can for these japanese butchers, and if that means ramming their whaling ships, then so be it.

Good for you.

 

[Magenta]

Another interesting fact from that report about Japanese demand for whale food: in 2011/2012, the ICR put up some 1,200 tonnes of whale meat for auction. Initially, only 300 kilograms - so only one quarter of one thousands of the total put up for auction - met their reserve price. After they lowered the reserve price, still only some 300 tonnes - one quarter - was sold.

The current total stockpiles in Japan of whale meat are around 5,000 tonnes. If I read it correctly, that corresponds to a catch of around 1,000 (minke) whales, i.e., the Japanese target for one year, as they met until the 2008/2009 season.

Figure 5 in the report shows how demand for whale meat has plummeted alongside an increase in demand for chicken, pork and beef. Not sure of the composition of the stockpile, but the auction included Sei and Bryde's whales as well as Minke.

That's encouraging. I don't object to the Japanese eating whale meat,
I would just like to see it at a sustainable level. Having one country scarfing down 5,000 tons a year can't be good for population numbers.

Commercial whaling doesn't make any sense if there's little (indeed, falling) demand for the meat and the industry requires huge subsidies to operate.

 

[Magenta]

The whale is harpooned and then dragged behind the whaling vessel until its is drowned. The whale dies an extremely painful and very protracted death. It is a cruel, brutal way to kill a defenceless animal.

I know that the "intention" is to kill the whale quickly with the explosive head on the harpoon, but it rarely happens. Most times, the whale drowns.

Evidence, please?

There's this paper published in Marine Policy that analyses video taken by Greenpeace:

Abstract
Video taken by Greenpeace of whaling by the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean provided a unique opportunity to obtain quantitative data relevant to the welfare aspects of the killing of whales. Catches of 16 individual Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) were analysed and in two of these asphyxiation appeared the most likely cause of death. Fewer than one in five whales were killed instantaneously and the average time to death for the remaining whales was around 10 min. The presence of Greenpeace did not result in a reduced accuracy of harpoon shots when compared with previous studies.

Gales N, et al. Is Japan’s whaling humane? Marine Policy (2007), doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2007.08.004 [pdf]

And there's the account by Mark Votier, a film-maker on board on a Japanese ship in the 1992/93 whaling season:

VOTIER: Their objective is to recover certain samples for analysis. The most important samples are the ear-plugs which of course are located in the head. So the gunner is directed in each case, he has in fact a standing order to shoot the animal in the body, in order to avoid damage to the head. Now what this means is that in about 55% of cases, at least the cases I observed, the animal wasn't killed outright, it was only wounded. So the animal is winched into a position on the bows of the boat. There it is speared. At the base of the spear was a detachable electrode, which became embedded in the animal's flesh. And then the gunner turns on a machine which discharged just 220 volts of electricity through the animal, with the purpose of immobilising it.

Link

Votier was sued for releasing the footage he had taken. Somewhat reluctantly, Japan did modify its killing methods as a result of the pressure on them over the scenes in this footage.

The Japanese and Norwegian numbers show such similar trends that it's hard to conclude that Sea Shepherd is having a great effect on Japanese whaling.

There's the additional financial cost that I quoted from the IFAW report in my post #864. Sea Shepherd estimate only 12 whales have been killed so far this season, and the whaling fleet does seem to be having some issues with refuelling...

They haven't bothered the Norwegians in years - probably because it didn't gave the same media coverage as they get when bothering the Japanese.

Killing whales in a whale sanctuary is not a good look.

 

[ddt]

Figure 5 in the report shows how demand for whale meat has plummeted alongside an increase in demand for chicken, pork and beef. Not sure of the composition of the stockpile, but the auction included Sei and Bryde's whales as well as Minke.

That's an interesting fact as well. The auction was about 1,200 tonnes, i.e., roughly one quarter of the stocks. It included 900 tonnes Sei whale, 200 tonnes Bryde's whale and only 100 tonnes Minke whale.

The Japanese catches since 2004 have consistently been 100 +/- 2 Sei whales, 50 +/- 1 Bryde's whales, and the rest (many more: between 290 and 1,117) Minke whales.

A Minke whale is smaller than the other two: Sei whale 15-20 tonnes, Bryde's whale 12-25 tonnes, Minke whale 4-10 tonnes (numbers from Wikipedia). Nevertheless, the much higher numbers of catches means that the non-auctioned part overwhelmingly consists of Minke whale meat. OTOH, the Minke whale meat was the only popular one at the auction, at the reduced price: 70% was sold, compared to 22% of the Sei whale meat and only 6% of the Bryde's.

I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from those numbers. Did they expect to sell the Minke anyhow?

Wiki says the Sei whale is endangered (population 80,000) and the Bryde's is "data deficient" - in my book that means you should treat it as endangered too. And thus, total injunction on hunting those two.

Commercial whaling doesn't make any sense if there's little (indeed, falling) demand for the meat and the industry requires huge subsidies to operate.

Agree.

 

[Magenta]

As was said, that's 1000 minke whales. 1000 out of a population of well over half a million*. 2000 if you add the Norwegian numbers, though those are just the quotas. For actual whales caught, for Norway and Japan together, it's around 1000.





*Population number from Wikipedia - although they only mention the half million population of the antarctic region. No population number for the arctic region. So it's well over half a million.

Regarding the population estimate of 515,000 for the Antarctic Minkes*: Looking at the IWC Report of the Scientific Committee (source of the Wikipedia figure), that figure is from CPIII** (1992/93-2003/04). In CPII (1985/86-1990/91) the population estimate was 720,000. The report says there was a large decline in 3 management areas and an increase in 2 others, with an overall decline of 30% between the two periods. A number of reasons were posited for the difference, including the possibility that there was a real decline in abundance, but no conclusion was drawn. (I don't know the results of CPI but the IUCN point to a decline of 60% between 1978/91 and 1991/2004 and, pending resolution, they list the species as Data Deficient.)

*Minkes are now apparently split into two species: Balaenoptera bonaerensis (Antarctic Minke) and Balaenoptera acutorostrata (Northern Minke).
**CP=circumpolar

IWC Report of the Scientific Committee [pdf]

That's an interesting fact as well. The auction was about 1,200 tonnes, i.e., roughly one quarter of the stocks. It included 900 tonnes Sei whale, 200 tonnes Bryde's whale and only 100 tonnes Minke whale.

The Japanese catches since 2004 have consistently been 100 +/- 2 Sei whales, 50 +/- 1 Bryde's whales, and the rest (many more: between 290 and 1,117) Minke whales.

A Minke whale is smaller than the other two: Sei whale 15-20 tonnes, Bryde's whale 12-25 tonnes, Minke whale 4-10 tonnes (numbers from Wikipedia). Nevertheless, the much higher numbers of catches means that the non-auctioned part overwhelmingly consists of Minke whale meat. OTOH, the Minke whale meat was the only popular one at the auction, at the reduced price: 70% was sold, compared to 22% of the Sei whale meat and only 6% of the Bryde's.

I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from those numbers. Did they expect to sell the Minke anyhow?

This article from a Japanese source gives a lot more information about the auction, and gives further reasons for the stockpile including competition from cheap whale meat imported from Iceland and fresh whale meat from Japanese coastal whaling.

In response to the IFAW report, Masayuki Komatsu (formerly the "face of Japanese whaling") was reported as saying the reason Japanese people weren't eating as much whale meat was because of high prices, and that Japan should be allowed to harvest more whales so that the price of whale meat would be competitive with other varieties of meat. Komatsu also responded to criticism of the worth of the scientific research by saying that they would get better results if they could increase the "scientific" catch.

And a telling comment from the director of IFAW's whale program:

“Along with the whaling issue, [the Japanese government is strongly opposed to issues like] the management of tuna fisheries, international proposals to protect sharks or even polar bears that come up at relevant international meetings—even if they don’t have a direct interest,” he says. “Unfettered access to marine resources on the high seas matters a lot to you if you’re a Japanese decision-maker.”

Link

Wiki says the Sei whale is endangered (population 80,000) and the Bryde's is "data deficient" - in my book that means you should treat it as endangered too. And thus, total injunction on hunting those two.

I agree. Unfortunately it appears these listings carry little weight in reality. The whale meat that Iceland sells to Japan comes from Fin whales which are listed as endangered and are in CITES Appendix I which I thought would prohibit trade in that species, but apparently not.

 

[NoahFence]

...basically if it has a heartbeat, the Japanese want to kill it.

 

[tsig]

...basically if it has a heartbeat, the Japanese want to kill it.

True because we know that the Japs, Nips, Yellow Peril are evil to the core.

 

[Cleon]

...basically if it has a heartbeat, the Japanese want to kill it.

Jesus, are you still trapped in the 1940s?

 

[theprestige]

Jesus, are you still trapped in the 1940s?

The Nineteen-fourties?

More like the Hateteen-fourties, am I right?