Japan seeking international arrest warrants for 3 Sea Shepherd members

NPC, there is no issue with sustainable utilisation of whales. In real day practical terms, it means that each year only around 1 or 2 % of a given stock of whales is likely to be subject to harvest. 1 or 2 % being harvested by humans does not mean that suddenly the natural mortality rate drops to zero and the environment no longer has any dead whales in it. Whales continue to die, and sink to the bottom of the sea, whether we take our 1 or 2 % harvest or not. And likewise, whales continue to copulate and produce offspring. It’s thanks to whales copulating and producing offspring to replace the dead that we can take 1 or 2% next year, too, forever.

If we are interested in sustainably utilising whales, there is no point in “letting them return to their original numbers”, as once they had we would then start hunting them and by consequence reduce their numbers back to a lower level again. You have to reduce whale numbers below their natural “carrying capacity” in order to gain a harvest. You can’t have whale populations at their maximum size (or “original numbers”) and also harvest them. There is a trade-off between having whale stock size at 100% capacity and having some level of harvest. The smart trade-off is to maintain the stock at a relatively high level, so as to ensure that your conservative harvest of 1 or 2% is large in real number terms. For recovering populations, we can start harvesting them anytime once they reach large enough abundance, but we should of course limit our catch to ensure that the stock continues it’s recovery to a higher level which not only provides more safety for the whale stock, but higher levels of harvest for humans.

If it still doesn’t sound good to you, Fine. You don’t need to join in the hunting, and you don’t need to join in the eating. Go eat a cow instead, or better, do something to reduce your own impact on the environment before preaching to others about why you think their choices are wrong.

NPC, what you call “international ban” is actually a moratorium to study the number, age distribution and reproductive capacity of whales. Japan’s research whaling is done to collect the data for estimating those numbers to determine the allowable whaling limit. It is by no means a loophole to continue commercial whaling as Green Peace want people to believe.

This is what the members of IWC agreed when they paused the commercial whaling.

http://www.iwcoffice.org/conservation/estimate.htm
At the bottom,
“When, at its 1982 meeting, the IWC agreed to a pause in commercial whaling (or to use popular terminology, a ‘moratorium’) from 1986, the amendment to the regulations included a clause that ‘the Commission will undertake a ‘comprehensive assessment’ of the effects of this decision on whale stocks and consider modification of this provision and the establishment of other catch limits’.”

“The term ‘Comprehensive Assessment’ had not been defined by the Commission and eventually the Scientific Committee defined it to be:
‘an in-depth evaluation of the status of all whale stocks in the light of management objectives and procedures… that … would include the examination of current stock size, recent population trends, carrying capacity and productivity’.”

Someone has to study the number of whales. No other country but Japan is doing that important job right now. Look at the number of Minke whales in the page. IWC says it cannot accurately estimate the number. Actually it can, and the number is increasing. But environmental activists who want to hide the facts just intervene the authorization process saying, “the sample size is not large enough to be statistically significant”, and prevent IWC to issue an “accurate” estimate. I think the activists are playing an unfair game here.

I do not think you are getting things strait.

>”Japan, obviously desperate to keep whaling takes note that the moratorium only applies to commercial whaling and not “scientific-research”.”

Well, every member of IWC agrees the moratorium only applies to commercial whaling and not “scientific-research”. You are trying to give an impression that Japan is loopholing the regulation. Strait ha?

>”Oh and we’re pretty sure the numbers are rising… because we’re counting them with our “scientific-research” vessels!”

So, you are criticizing just because the scientists are Japanese and Japanese are unreliable. Any nation or any civic group can form its own fleet and count the number of whales. Why doesn’t Green Peace or Sea Shepard use its ship for counting rather than chasing after Japanese ships? Australia has a large number of whale watching boats. Why don’t they ask that industry to count the whales? Counting and checking the well being of whales is a duty of IWC member nations anyway. If their data shows decrease in the number of Minke whales, I would think again. But in the absence of such data, I find no reason to criticize Japanese data.