Asahi.com reported the following yesterday.
"Japan's research whaling has long been criticized from around the world as commercial whaling in disguise. Now, research whaling faces a domestic blow--stagnant sales of whale meat."
It went on to say that despite an increase in whale kill numbers and the amount of whale meat supplied to the domestic market jumping by 30% between 2005-2006, the Japanese Government sponsored Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) had to reduce it's wholesale whale meat price by 20%.
The Institute now appears to be seriously in debt to the Government.
The Japan Times online also featured an article yesterday condemning the current practice of killing whale calves and lactating females.
While the European Union, never happy with Japan's 2008 whale kill quota increase, has now called for a unified stance on whaling.
The current state of play is that the population of Japan is not regularly eating whale meat even with a price decrease and lethal 'scientific' research is not financially viable in its own right.
So why does Japan continue its annual lethal research in the Southern Ocean, when non-lethal methodology is likely to cost less and be just as effective?
Why does the Japanese Government continue to allow and subsidise a whale hunt which is not paying its way and reimbursing grants given to ICR ?
If whale meat is not enjoying high sales for domestic human consumption, where is this whale meat going? Is it being stockpiled or is it being converted into pet food?
Estimates of the annual worth of the whale meat industry show that someone's making an end product profit, but who?
Australia and the rest of the world deserve an answer from the Government of Japan.
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