[The Last Update: 09/Aug/2009]
The Necessity of Employing Lethal Methods in the Study of Whale@Resources
Every time Japanese research fleet leaves for research whaling, 'scientists' in anti-whaling nations argue that non-lethal research can give the same quality of data. However, I've never heard that those 'scientists' could prove such assertion by conducting their own non-lethal research in the real field. Are those just armchair theories to please political interests of some groups?
When IWC Scientific Committee reviewed Japanese research in the Antarictic in 1997, even a remark focused only on "population age structure" aspect stated "The review meeting noted that there were non-lethal methods available that could provide information about population age structure (e.g. natural marking) but that logistics and the abundance of minke populations in Areas IV and V probably precluded their successful application."
Mother ship Nisshin Maru at public open day (Yokohama, Apr-2005).
It was originally built as Chikuzen Maru for trawling fishery in US EEZ. When Japan lodged legal objection to commercial whaling moratoreum, it faced US threat that Japanese fishery would be barred out from US sea if it would not lay down the objection. Although Japan finally waived the objection, it was nonetheless barred out from US EEZ. Chikuzen Maru, which lost the playground after 3 years' operation, was sold and transformed into a whaling mother ship in 1991.
Introduction - Why Do I Support Whaling?
