Japanse walvisvloot vaart uit op jacht naar 850 dwergvinvissen en 50 vinvissen in Australische Arctische wateren

Japan's whaling fleet sets sail under pressure

19-11-2009 ANDREW DARBY, The Age, Australia


JAPANESE whalers have set out for waters off the Australian Antarctic Territory - the third season since the Rudd Government came to power hoping to end Southern Ocean whaling. The factory ship Nisshin Maru and its catcher boats steamed out of Innoshima port in southern Honshu yesterday without the ceremony that marked many previous departures, Greenpeace observers said.

The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the fleet, confirmed that humpback whales would again be spared from the hunt, extending a postponement agreed in 2007.

''In regards to the lethal research, the number stands at 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales,'' ICR spokesman Glenn Inwood told The Age.

The fleet begins whaling in mid-December and alternates each year between mainly Australian Antarctic waters and the Ross Sea, according to its official reports to the International Whaling Commission.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the Government was deeply disappointed by the departure. He repeated an invitation for the Japanese to join in Australia's $32 million non-lethal whale science program. Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt attacked the failure to halt the whaling.

''Will Peter Garrett lash the Japanese whalers with one of his taxpayer-funded research papers or will he deliver on his promised international court action?'' Mr Hunt said.

IWC talks are due to continue early next month. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said recently that with diplomatic dialogue continuing, he was respectful of the fact that there was a new government in Japan. But with no evidence of success three years after the IWC process began, anti-whaling groups are pinning their hopes on external forces.

Rewritten maritime safety and environmental laws could rule Nisshin Maru out of Antarctic operations within a few years and a new Japanese Government waste-watch committee is focusing on organisations that subsidise whaling.

Meanwhile, plans by Sea Shepherd activists to intensify protests this summer are taking shape. The group plans to take two ships south, although the Dutch Government is preparing a law that could strip the Steve Irwin of its flag, and the group's new fast biodiesel trimaran, Ady Gil, is still in New Zealand.

Sea Shepherd's leader, Paul Watson, said from the US that he had overcome Australian visa problems and expected to head south from Fremantle on December 7.

''I feel very confident that this may be the last year,'' Captain Watson said. ''We have cost them their profits for three years and we will cost them for a fourth. The new Japanese Government is not inclined to continue the subsidies.''

The Ady Gil's skipper, Pete Bethune, said: ''The days of the Japanese being able to hunt whales without scrutiny or disruption in Antarctica are now gone. We are ready for them.''

His vessel has been named after a Californian millionaire whose donation enabled Sea Shepherd to acquire it. ''It's worth every penny to me even if one beautiful, amazing whale is saved,'' Mr Gil said.

Greenpeace has decided against direct action in the Antarctic, with its two campaigners, Toro Suzuki and Junichi Sato, facing trial for the alleged theft of whale meat in Japan.

In the case, the Tokyo Supreme Court this week denied a special appeal seeking disclosure of evidence of a whale meat embezzlement scandal that was exposed by the two before they were prosecuted.

(Bron: http://www.theage.com.au/)