More whale species killed: Departing Clinton punts on Japan whaling sanctions

Pirate whaling goes Mainstream. Clinton ignores U.S. law and does the easy thing. Stop the presses. Meanwhile, commercial whaling stages a comeback.

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These are still not good times for whales.
Although Japan was duly certified by the Secretary of Commerce as diminishing the effectiveness of the International Whaling Commission, and although this calls for trade sanctions to be levied for such an offense, Clinton decided that talk was better than action, giving momentum to those who are expanding whale kills every year.

Japan has for years been awarding itself a "research" permit to kill minke whales – using a loophole in IWC rules, the poorly-written "article 8" of the ICRW. This "scientific" program is, every year, lambasted by the majority of IWC member nations because it is SO transparently bogus. This "research" doesn’t need to be done (according to anyone besides Japan’s whalers), and if it DID need to be done, the relevant data could be obtained by doing harmless skin biopsy darts and DNA analysis. Instead, Japan claims that it is scientifically necessary to kill increasing numbers of whales for their research, and, as long as they’re already dead, why not chop them up, refrigerate them, and ship them back to Japan for sale in Japan’s markets as a high-priced "status" novelty food?

It was recently disclosed that the "research institute" which conducts the "research" from this whaling receives $35 million of its annual $40 million budget from the sale of this whalemeat.

But the real money is in what is hidden by thowing this meat into Japan’s markets: a huge "invisible" trade in illicit whalemeat. This was documented beginning in 1994 by the conservation organization Earthtrust which invented and implemented comprehensive new techniques for DNA testing the whalemeat in markets. This testing shown that there were a lot of whales – including endangered species – making up the marketplace. And thereby hangs the reason for continued "research" whaling which nobody believes is really research. To wit: if the "research whale meat" wasn’t in the market, it would be obvious even to Japan’s famously indifferent authorities that the market was still full of whale meat from somewhere.

Recent DNA studies have shown that only 54% of the meat in Japan’s market comes from the "research" kills, and those DNA studies were conducted by sources within Japan. (Randomized external studies have not been done by international conservationists outside Japan since the more-expensive Earthtrust protocols were dropped by western conservationists in 1998, leaving the world reliant on data generated from within Japan).

So what has Japan done? In its most recent "research whaling" season, it added Brydes and Sperm whales to its kill list, and went ahead and harpooned them Both of these species are listed as Endangered by the U.S., and Japan’s blatant move should have triggered trade sanctions to bring Japan in line with International conservation treaties.

But it didn’t.

Departing president Bill Clinton turned down last September’s advice by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta, which strongly urged that sanctions be applied.

In early January, Clinton stated "I do not believe that import prohibitions would further our objectives at this time." However, he is "deeply concerned". Deeply. With that, he let Japan off the hook, and made it certain that a lot more whales would die.

Whalers from Japan to Norway gleefully pointed out that this is the 10th time the U.S. has threatened sanctions against those who have violated the IWC’s whaling rules, and then has backed down.

The IWC has no punitive mechanisms of its own, and has only functioned in recent years – to the extent that it has – because it has been backed up by threats of trade sanctions levied by other member nations against scofflaws. Thus, the stock in whaling companies may soon rise while the "stocks" of whales again plummet under the assault of commercial whaling.

We can always hope that President Bush will uphold the law and take a stand for conservation on the whales’ behalf. At the very least, it would surprise people.