End the Whale Slaughter

The leader of Japan’s whaling program has called for an even larger kill next season in the name of scientific research. We think it is yet another excuse to perpetuate the industry to feed Japan’s traditional appetite for whale meat. But if he is serious about science, let him be bound by the findings of the June meeting of the International Whaling Commission in San Diego and the May session of its scientific advisory committee.

Only three nations are still whaling, each using a scientific research exemption from the global moratorium on whaling as an excuse. They are Iceland, with a target of 78 whales; Norway with 30, and Japan, which is just completing a harvest of about 300 whales in the Antarctic waters. All of the whales taken currently are Minkes.

Japan originally had proposed a kill of 825 Minke and 50 sperm whales, then reduced its current take to 300 in the face of international criticism. But next season, according to new plans, it will seek to restore the 825 count of Minke whales, according to Fukuzo Nagasaki, director of the Institute of Cetacean Research. Only by doing that, he argued, can there be an accurate assessment of the global whale stock. The Minke population is thought to be between 400,000 and 700,000.

Behind the Japanese maneuver, apparently, is a hope that a scientific argument can be developed by 1990 to win approval for the resumption of international commercial whaling that killed tens of thousands of whales each year.

That is a bad idea. The United States has made clear its disapproval by maintaining fishing-right sanctions against Japan. So it should.