Japan says that whaling is a defensible cultural legacy. Others claim it is a barbaric relic that has no place in modern society. A popular TV show and constant barrage of negative publicity about the practice has hurt Japan's world image, especially given the fact that whaling has no economic significance or particular relevance to current Japanese dietary practices.
It gets more complicated now that Japan has acknowledged it is using funds donated for tsunami relief to protect this years whale fleet sailing. The Japanese argument is that some of the towns damaged by last year's earhtquake and tsunami are whaling ports. The larger problem is that emotional objections to foreign criticism simply reinforce the notion that Japan is not a country sufficiently committed to global mores to justify additional outside investment. There are countries big enough to survive that sort of ostracism. Japan is no longer one of them. JL
Julia Whitty reports in Mother Jones:
Japan has admitted that some of its disaster funds earmarked for earthquake and tsunami relief will instead go to boost security for its so-called "scientific" whale hunts. The Japan Times reports:
It was a comparatively minor entry in the annual, ritualized battle between pro- and anti-whalers. Japan's whaling fleet pulled out of Shimonoseki port near Nagasaki earlier this week on its way to another controversial four-month Antarctic cull. In the fine print of the 2011 departure, however, was a PR land mine that would detonate and send ripples across the world.
Traveling with the whalers was what the Japanese media called "beefed-up security," a euphemism for a party of coast guard officers who would ride shotgun in the converted harpoon ship Shonan Maru 2, making sure the fleet achieved its target catch. That vessel gained some notoriety last year when it plowed through the Ady Gil ocean-going speedboat, cutting it in half.
Japan Fisheries Agency officials admitted that about ¥2.28 billion (US$29 million) would be taken from a ¥500 billion (US$6.4 billion) portion of disaster funds earmarked for fisheries-related spending, approved by Japan's parliament last month.
These monies apparently went to equip the Shonan Maru 2 with unspecified security equipment designed to win the battle against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Ady Gil. This even though 95 percent of Japanese admit to rarely or never eating whale meat and presumably don't give a damn whether whaling continues.
Japan's rationale: That safer hunts will help whaling towns recover from the earthquake and tsunami damage.
My question: $29 million for a party of coast guard officers? What else did they sent out with the whalers? Torpedoes?
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