from http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=22017



Does anyone know why Japan wants to hunt whales?

I think eating ceteceans is a cultural thing. They can't eat dolphins anymore because they are too smart and it would anger people, so they eat whales. Naturally, a business arose around the consumption of whale meat and the business wants to make money, so they try to convince consumers to buy their product. I would suppose they also have lobbyist like any big business to get the government to help them. There is no similar whale industry in the US, so there really isn't any force driving the government to help the non-existing industry.

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But why would the Japanese government support this business?
Not exactly good PR.


edit-surely they would want to let this redundant industry die off.

Japan is a country with very little arable land. What there is, is mostly, or was traditionally devoted to, intensive rice culture. They eat (or ate) far more sea food than other nations, even the British, another island nation with a fishing tradition, but one with much more farmable land.
So eating sea food, both animal and vegetable, is a much stronger culinary tradition than other societies.
See: http://www.japanreview.net/essays_fish_and_rice.htm

If, IF, whale stocks are at a sustainable level and whale catching will not impair that state, then why not catch and eat whales? I can't pronounce on that big IF, nor on the cruelty or not of whale catching. But unless you are a total vegan and eat no meat, then opposing it on other grounds is just sqeamishness.

John

Frog March. There's money in it. Never underestimate the power of money.

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But it seems that whale meat is becoming unpopular and they can buy beef etc from abroad.


I'm sure that there would be money in lard if you could run a big advertising campaign promoting lard. You could have lard for breakfast lard for lunch and lard for supper and there would be lots of money. But why would the Japanese support an failing industry that is only going to create a bad impression of Japan?

Well, you know, cows aren't exactly an endangered species.

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[quote=Frog march
.......
I'm sure that there would be money in lard if you could run a big advertising campaign promoting lard. You could have lard for breakfast lard for lunch and lard for supper ....................[/QUOTE]

Actually, there is a large demand for something similar to lard in the U.S.. It's called fast food and corporations like McDonald's and Burger King are getting......FAT (sorry!), from the profits.

Regards,

tbm

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I dont think the Japanese care for foreign opinion. Neither do the Norweigians who also campaign for a resumption of Whaling. they do 'scientific' whaling like the Japanese.

the purpose of which as far as I can see is to see of the meat is just as tasty as last year.

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nonono, they're researching how many whales one boat can catch in a specific time.

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Whale meat is now very expensive in Japan. It's sort of a luxury item. However, in the fifites and sixties it was quite cheap and Japanese children would have eat it in their school lunches. Back then the Japanese diet was still quite poor and the extra protien was important. A lot of Japanese people like whale meat out of nostalgia.

The article you link to describes a politician playing silly buggers. No one in Australia eats whales so a politician can try to improve his or her environmental credentials at no personal cost by bashing Japan on this issue. It's a cheap shot in my opinion.

I think the most sensible thing to do might be to set a quota for a sustainable whate catch and then auction it off to the highest bidder. The money raised can be used for world environmental protection. If people want to buy whaleing rights and not use them, they are free to do so.

Or SPAM!



What better marketing could you possibly ask for?

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Gillianren,
Are you agreeing or disagreeing?
If there are as many whales as cows, no argument.

John

OK, this time I'll stay on topic:

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that is probably a typical scene in a Japanese restaurant.

Good one!

A long time ago (1960s) I tried some whale meat at a Japanese restaurant in NYC. Tasted very greasy.

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Well actually no. Now you can only get whale meat in certain fancy restaurants. (But it is funny.)

Japanese people who used to get whale meat in their school lunches have told me it was too oily.

And just to put the Japanese eating of whales in perspective, at the same time that the Japanese were giving their children whale meat, other countries were using it as pet food. So I respect the Japanese more for eating whales than countries that used them mainly for soap and pet food.

Of course I don't approve of anyone catching any whale species that are endangered now.

The Japanese government supports whaling because the Japanese people support it. That is what an elected government is hired to do.

The problem with auctioning off whale rights and using them for environmental protection is that no one has rights over the high seas. You can't tell the Japanese that they can't send ships to get whales, or make them pay if they want to. There's no mechanism for doing so. We have tons of problems in Canada keeping our East Coast fisheries sustainable, in part because Portuguese and American vessels like to head out to international waters and trawl. Occasionally we get the ones that encroach on our waters, but the fish go beyond that, and we're powerless.

As to cows, the Japanese don't eat a lot of beef... to switch over to a beef-based culinary system would require everyone in Japan to learn a whole new method of cooking. It's not trivial. Besides, they're pretty scared of mad cow over there, from what I hear.

I have a friend from Japan who came over as an exchange student. I met her when she'd been here for about 3 months. She was quite chubby, which surprised me, because I rarely imagine fat Japanese people. So she went home, and a couple of years later she came and visited again. She was very slender (like, down to 90 pounds from 110). I asked about this (because I have no tact), and she said that she'd gained a lot of weight when she moved here because of the amount of fat in Canadian cooking, and how we all eat so much meat, but she'd lost it almost right away when she went back home. Not to say that eating whale meat every day wouldn't have the same effect... but interesting anyway, I think.

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Yep, the tragedy of the commons. Sad isn't it? There are similar problems with the atmosphere.

Yes, I've seen this a lot, Japanese people who gain weight when they go to a Western county. Or in one case a teenaged girl didn't exactly grow fatter but put on an enourmous growth spurt. She looked like she had grown an inch for every week she spent in America.

The opposite is also true. Westerners who move to Japan often lose weight. In fact staying with a Japanese family for a few weeks is probably cheaper than a lot of weight loss programs. We could make a business out of this and get rich.