Japanese whalers eye off home waters

ABC News (Australia) : Japanese whalers eye off home waters

A Japanese whaling expert is concerned Japan may compensate for a lower-than-usual haul of whales in the Southern Ocean by increasing whale and dolphin hunting off its coast.

Japanese whalers called off their annual hunt in February - a month early - citing harassment by anti-whaling activist group Sea Shepherd.

Sea Shepherd predicts the Japanese will not return to waters off Antarctica next year.

But Jun Morikawa, an academic at Rakuno Gakuen University and the author of a book about Japanese whaling, says he is concerned that because fewer whales were killed in the Southern Ocean, Japan may want to hunt more whales and dolphins in its own waters.

"In order to compensate the loss of the Antarctica [catch] they might try to increase the number of catches in the north-west Pacific, then along with the coastal dolphins," he said.

Mr Morikawa says the number of dolphins slaughtered jumped dramatically when an international moratorium on whaling took effect in 1986.

To get around the moratorium, Japan has since hunted whales on the basis of scientific research, even though the meat is sold openly to restaurants and school cafeterias.

He says the expensive hunting operation in the Southern Ocean has created a Catch-22 situation.

"To operate this entire research whaling program, financially it's become really difficult to sustain. They have to sell the meat to recover the money so that they can keep on the following year research whaling," he said.

But Greenpeace Australia spokesman Steve Campbell says he does not think the reduced catch in the south will increase the whale and dolphin meat sought by Japan off its own coast.

"They have so much whale meat they don't know what to do with it. It's in freezers and so on and not being used," he said.

"Demand for whale meat is at an all-time low and is probably terminal. We don't expect necessarily that there will then be a spike in catches of other cetaceans."

Mr Campbell says Greenpeace had predicted the early end to this year's Southern Ocean hunt because of financial strains on the whaling industry.

Mr Morikawa agrees and says Japan's whaling industry faces a number of financial problems.

He says the low demand for whale meat is a big factor, but banks are also reluctant to lend the reported $300 million it would cost to replace an ageing mother ship of the Japanese whaling fleet.

Whaling has also lost some political support, with the issue a low priority for Japan's current government.

But Mr Morikawa says there is still support for continuing the practice, which has been promoted as a part of Japanese culture.

"From the Fishery Agency's point of view, they want to come back again because of this tactic - sabotage activity," he said.

"They think, 'how can we give up on this mission', so in order to save face I think they feel it's just a matter of principle."

Radio Australia contacted Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research via the organisation's NZ public relations firm for a response, but they were unable to provide an immediate response.