On March 30, three Japanese whaling ships returned from the Antarctic sea to investigate whaling and brought back 333 whales they had killed. In July this year, Japan's commercial whaling officially resumed, the scope of whaling will be limited to Japan's territorial waters and economic waters, and the Antarctic sea whaling officially ended.
Why does Japan hunt whales?
Surrounded by the sea, Japan is famous for its strong environmental awareness. Every year, Japan even has a national holiday, the day of the sea, which is hard to be associated with the bloody scene of whaling. Japan's only purpose of not letting go of whales is as follows:
1、 Whaling history:
In the prehistoric era, Japan began whaling activities, and compared with the Western whaling methods, Japan explored its own whaling technology; in the Edo era, a fishermen organization named "whale group" appeared in Japan, and began to embark on the road of large-scale collective whaling; In Meiji era, Japan introduced Western-style whaling technology, which made it possible to hunt whales in the ocean, and became one of the main whaling countries in modern times with Norway, Britain and other countries.
2、 Japanese government's attitude towards whaling
Australia is one of the countries against Japanese whaling. On the Japanese official website of the Japanese Consulate General in Sydney, the Japanese government published a special article to explain its position
1. There are more than 80 species of cetaceans caught, which are not endangered species, but over growing species.
2. Japan strongly supports the protection of endangered whales like the white fin whale.
3. However, it is necessary to hunt and kill those whales which are rich in resources and recognized by the international community that will not have a negative impact on the total number of whales. We should adhere to the attitude of sustainable utilization and will not repeat the past history of indiscriminate hunting and killing.
In addition, the Japanese government also explained to the outside world the "legitimacy" of Japanese whaling from the perspectives of the relationship between dietary culture and whales, whale elements in Japanese literature and art, sacrifice and folk literature and art and whales, and belief and whales.
3、 The reason for Japan's stubborn insistence.
Japan is concerned about its international image and attaches great importance to international public relations and public diplomacy. Only on some matters, Japan stubbornly sticks to it and turns a deaf ear to the persuasion and opposition of outsiders. It doesn't care that its stubborn adherence to these matters will lead to the loss of its national image.
Stubborn reason 1: because of loopholes in international law.
The Convention on a total ban on whaling only refers to commercial whaling, and the ruling of the International Court of justice only finds that the scale of Japan's current behavior is not in line with scientific whaling. Therefore, Japan soon revised its whaling plan and made changes in quantity.
In fact, no one can monitor how many whales Japan has killed once it goes into ocean hunting. Before the international norms of scientific whaling were promulgated, or before scientific whaling was only limited to catching and not killing whales, Japan would continue to rely on this "legal" excuse for stubborn whaling.
Obstinate reason 2: it is an essential reason, that is, a political reason.
Japan considers itself an island country, and its habit of eating whales is related to national security. If this habit and tradition are cut off, not only this traditional industry will be extinct, but Japan's food security will completely depend on other countries' land food. In the era of food crisis, whale meat once became the main source of animal protein in Japan. Even in today's highly globalized and interdependent era, Japan still has a sense of crisis and tries to maintain this tradition and industry.
The third reason for obstinacy is domestic propaganda. Japan has always interpreted the opposition as an international offensive to suppress Japan. Opinion polls also show that Japanese people's opposition to whaling does not outweigh their support for whaling.
The value of whales
Whalebone can be made into many things, such as brushes, women's brassieres, and umbrellas. Eating whale meat is an important part of the Japanese diet. Some Japanese say: 'most of the animal protein consumed by Japanese comes from whale meat rather than beef. '
Whale oil can be used in leather industry, tempering bath and lubricant. After hydrogenation, it can be used as raw material for edible and manufacturing soap and candle.
According to the international regulations, 1 blue whale = 2.5 baleen whale = 6 baleen whales.
Due to the international ban on commercial whaling, the supply of whale meat in Japan has been greatly reduced, and the price of whale meat has been soaring. A kilogram of whale meat can be sold for 90-100 dollars in Japan.