Japanese Town Wary of Bid to Resume Whaling : Economies: Ayukawa, which has eaten the meat of the Minke for 1,000 years, fears commercial hunting would boost prices even higher.

If anyone’s happy about Japan’s push to lift a ban on whale hunting, it should be the residents of this northeastern seaport, where whaling has been a way of life for generations. So why is everybody so glum?

The big worry here is that commercial whalers will be the only winners if Japan gets its way at a world whaling conference opening next Monday in Kyoto. Tokyo will ask for a yearly quota of 50 Minke whales to keep its commercial whalers afloat and preserve Japan’s 1,000-year-old tradition of eating whale meat.

However, the government’s glossy pro-whaling brochures, painting a picture of a uniform Japanese view on whaling, contrast with the undercurrent of apprehension in this town.

These days, when only a handful of Ayukawans depend directly on whaling for an income, the prime concern is that the cost of whale meat will rise beyond the reach of the average family, and that the whale culture and cuisine still cherished in the town will vanish.

“If the hunt is restarted, would it really be to preserve our whale culture, or would it be for a profit motive?” said taxi driver Katsushiro Abe, 51, who spent 18 years as a whaler. “That’s the key.”

If the real aim is to preserve the town’s whale-eating traditions, Abe says, the whalers should sell the meat directly to the town and cut out the middleman, whose take makes whale meat tough on the budget for the average Ayukawan.

Since Japan agreed to an international ban on whale hunting in 1987, most of Ayukawa’s whale meat has been doled out by the government. The meat comes from the catch of some 300 Minke whales Japan is allowed to hunt for “research” each year under the ban.

Twice a year, each family in Ayukawa gets a ration coupon for four or five kilos of whale meat for about $27 a kilo, a little below prices in local stores but still expensive. Many Ayukawans fear that a return to commercial whaling could threaten this system and drive prices even higher.

“People who used to eat cheap, really fresh whale meat just can’t afford today’s prices,” said Haruto Yamamoto, 71, who runs a fishing tackle shop and serves on the local chamber of commerce cooperative association. “They should increase the government allocation of whale meat to the people in this town.”

There’s already grumbling that the government is handing out less meat than it used to. And Ayukawans complain that the choicest bits of whale end up in exclusive restaurants in Tokyo, not on local dinner tables. Says Koichi Azumi, 71, a whaler for 13 years who now runs a corner store: “The Minke whale is delicious, but it’s no good if there’s no blubber.”

What’s more, not everybody is convinced by the commercial arguments for reopening the hunt. Since the quota of 50 Minkes would have to be shared with Japan’s three other whaling towns, a lifting of the ban is hardly going to mark a return to the glory days of whaling for Ayukawa, when most of the town depended on the industry.

Indeed, some question whether festivals to promote whaling and the mayor’s trips to whaling conferences overseas represent tax money well spent at a time when the town is casting about for new ways to make a living.

“Even if whaling starts again, things won’t return to the way they were before,” says Azumi. “The people doing the small-scale whaling are the biggest supporters of reopening whaling.”

Even Ayukawa’s mom-and-pop whaling companies, however, are learning to get along without whales. Since 1987, they’ve been allowed to catch only two small species of whales in coastal waters, and sidelines such as raising salmon are becoming main businesses.

Nihon Kinkai, one of the town’s four coastal whaling companies, posted a profit of $76,000 on sales of $3.3 million in 1992, rebounding from a loss the previous year. But more than 80% of sales came from raising and marketing salmon, a business the company started in 1986 as an alternative to whaling.

A Nihon Kinkai spokesman declined to compare last year’s figures with its 1987 results, but said the company caught 50 Minke whales that year, grossing about $18,000 per whale.

The scientific arm of the International Whaling Commission, a kind of United Nations for whaling issues, ruled last year that populations of the 10-ton Minke whale have recovered enough to support commercial hunting again. Norway and Iceland pledged to resume the Minke hunt after the anti-whaling countries pushed through a vote to maintain the moratorium anyway.

Japan, too, is getting increasingly vocal about its unhappiness with the ban on Minke hunting as the scientific evidence shifts in its favor. At the IWC meeting in Kyoto next week, Tokyo will push hard for a resumption of the hunt.