TOKYO:
More than one million whales, dolphins and porpoises have been
slaughtered off Japan
in the past 70 years – and new analysis by the London-based
Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) indicates these unsustainable
hunts are on track to wipe out key species in Japan’s coastal waters.
Launching its new report
Toxic Catch: Japan’s unsustainable and irresponsible whale, dolphin and porpoise hunts
at a press conference in Tokyo today (October 31), EIA urged the
Government of Japan to phase out the hunts over a 10-year period through
targeted actions to restore
depleted cetacean populations and working with hunters to find
alternative livelihoods.
Japan’s
hunts of small toothed whales, dolphins and porpoises (known as small
cetaceans) constitute the largest directed hunt of cetaceans in the
world, yet there is little
transparency regarding the methods used to set catch limits and
widespread concern that consumers are not informed that the resulting
products are toxic with mercury and other contaminants.
“The
hunts in Japan’s coastal waters specifically target nine small cetacean
species, eight of them with Government-set catch limits which are
clearly unsustainable,” said
EIA cetaceans campaigner and report co-author Sarah Baulch.
“For
2013, the catch limits allow the slaughter of 16,655 small cetaceans,
but our analysis of available scientific data raises very serious
concerns about the sustainability
of these hunts.”
Favoured
species such as the striped dolphin began to decline drastically due to
overexploitation long before catch limits were introduced in 1993.
Actual catch numbers have
since declined to below these limits for most targeted species; this is
due in part to falling consumer demand, but there is significant
evidence indicating that a number of exploited populations are too
depleted to allow quotas to be filled.
“Despite
strong indications of population declines, there appears to be little
formal monitoring by the Government of Japan,” added Baulch. “For most
hunted species, the
majority of population estimates are based on surveys more than
20-years-old.
“In
using outdated population information and lacking a scientifically
rigorous method for setting catch limits, the Government is displaying a
lack of responsibility and
is failing to implement its own policies of sustainable utilisation.”
In
addition to sustainability concerns, Japanese consumers are left largely
ignorant of the high levels of pollutants which typically accumulate in
the meat and blubber of
these top marine predators; some products can reach 85 times the safe
limits for consumption of methyl mercury and 140 times the safe limit
for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – particularly shocking in light of
the recent signing of the Minamata Convention on Mercury
in Japan.
Sakae
Hemmi, of Japanese NGO Elsa Nature Conservancy, said: “The Government of
Japan’s stubborn reluctance to relinquish this archaic industry is not
only driving threatened
marine species towards extinction, but is endangering the health of its
people.”
