Canada silent on Japan's aim to widen whale hunt

Aron Heller
CanWest News Service
June 20, 2005

The International Whaling Commission opens its 57th annual meeting today in Ulsan, South Korea, amid growing concerns over Japan's intention to expand its whaling activities.

Despite a worldwide ban on commercial whaling, Japan continues to kill hundreds of whales a year. According to recent reports, Japan plans to introduce a proposal at the meeting that would allow it to double its whaling output in the protected waters around Antarctica and add two new protected species -- fin and humpback whales -- to its target list.

That has sparked criticism from the United States, Australia, New Zealand and several other governments in recent weeks.

Canada has refused to take a stand.

"We don't permit whaling here in Canada and we are not a member of IWC so we are not going to have a position," said Chantal Lamadeleine, a spokeswoman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Japan is one of only three whaling nations in the world today, along with Norway and Iceland. But, in host-nation South Korea, recent rumblings have the Koreans threatening to join the whalers.

"Whales face more threats today than in any time in the history of the IWC," Patrick Ramage, director of communications for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said from Korea.

In 1982, after centuries of whaling that nearly drove the world's largest animals to extinction, the IWC passed the moratorium on commercial whaling. However, a loophole in the Whaling Convention allowed for "scientific whaling," the killing of unlimited numbers of whales for scientific research.

Since the moratorium took effect in 1986, more than 25,000 whales have been killed in known whaling operations -- over 1,300 a year -- many in the name of science.

Animal rights activists consider scientific whaling a sham, as the meat from these whales often shows up on plates in speciality restaurants in Japan and Korea, where whale meat is considered a delicacy. "It's commercial whaling in disguise," said Ramage.