One has to wonder exactly whose press releases are being relied on for stories concerning last weekend's International Whaling Commission meeting in Tokyo and the additional informal discussion concerning a repeal of the international whaling moratorium.
Japan already carries out "a limited hunt in waters close to its shores" in which it kills around 100 whales and in excess of 21,000 dolphins annually according to the government fisheries agency reported in The New York Times.
The NZ Herald on Sunday reported the following today.
"LONDON - Controversial plans to lift the worldwide ban on whaling were presented to a secret meeting of more than 70 governments in London last week.
The plans, which have alarmed environmentalists, have been welcomed by both pro- and anti-whaling governments and seek to lift a long stalemate over hunting, enabling Japan officially to resume commercial whaling for the first time in more than 20 years.
The plans would permit the world's main whaling nation to carry out a limited hunt in waters close to its shores.
In return, Japan would have to stop exploiting a loophole in international law, through which it kills hundreds of whales around Antarctica each year under the guise of "scientific research".
The plans - drawn up at another unpublicised meeting in Tokyo last month - were presented by the governments of Argentina and the Netherlands to a closed three-day session of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) at the Renaissance Hotel near Heathrow airport, which ended yesterday."
There is a real danger here that Japan is angling to extend its commercial whale kill into Pacific Ocean waters and to not only include Minke whales but also to have some threatened species
placed on the official catch list.
One also has to question the present motives of the Netherlands and Argentina.
The Netherlands effectively ceased commercial whaling in 1964 when it sold its last whaling ship to Japan and now officially opposes the practice of whaling. So its support of discussions about
allowing Japan to widen its coastal whaling is possibly in response to thinly veiled Japanese threats of legal action or diplomatic sanctions over the Netherlands registered vessel, the Steve Irwin.
In 2007 Argentina supported an extension of the Antarctic Southern Ocean whale sanctuary into the South Atlantic and has been critical of Japan for voting against this move.
Given Japan's history of using money to pave the way, a suspicion develops concerning its 'new' relationship with these two countries.
The international community would be foolish to believe that any concession granted to Japan would see that country cease its drive to expand both whale kill numbers and the territory in which it conducts these whale hunts.
For the voice of the hunted and soon to be hunted go and listen to their songs/sounds:
Humpback Whale 3 Male Whale in 2003
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