Thursday, April 16, 2015

No Go For Nasty Nippons

Japan's plan, to waltz back into the Southern Ocean for more whaling next season, has been knocked back, with independent experts finding no justification for a new hunt.
Death, by any other name...

The nasty Nippon govt submitted a plan for review by experts at International Whaling Commission (IWC), for a revamped "research" programme killing nearly 4000 whales over 12 years. But the IWC panel said Japan failed to provide enough information to determine whether killing more minke whales was necessary to meet the research objectives..."therefore, the current proposal does not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling to achieve those objectives." Nice!!!!
Japan proposed taking 330 minke whales annually in a 12yr.programme - that would mean a total kill of 3996 - on top of the nearly 10,000 already killed under its scientific permits. It's boffins set two broad objectives for the programme called NEWREP-A: obtaining more precise information on minkes should the global moratorium on commercial whaling ever be lifted; and investigating the Antarctic marine ecosystem.
The IWC experts said considerable work had been undertaken to develop NEWREP-A..."however the present proposal contains insufficient information for the panel complete a full review." It's proposed a new work programme by the Japanese (which may take several years), to provide more scientific information before a full review of the programme can be completed under IWC rules.
Quite frankly, NEWREP-A is no different to the previous Japanese hunts rejected by the international court. Japan added several non-lethal elements to make it appear less focused on lethal methods but, in terms of research effort, and expenditure, it was still same-ol'-same-ol' whale killing.
No word from the Japanese govt yet, but you can imagine they're spewing up their sushi right now...

UPDATE: 19 April 2015 - Japan says "F*** YOU! We're going hunting ANYWAY!!"

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