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Japanese children get first-hand look at whale slaughter
School children are taught 'cultural importance' of controversial industry
- The Daily Telegraph
- Published: 00:04 June 28, 2008
Tokyo: Japanese children as young as ten are watching whales being slaughtered to teach them the "cultural importance" of Japan's controversial commercial whaling industry.
As the whaling season gets underway, children in Wada, southeast of Tokyo, have been on field trips to see the first baird's beaked whales of the year winched up the concrete slipway and carved up with razor-sharp flensing knives.
Smartly dressed and in bright yellow caps, the children took notes and sketched parts of the ten-metre whale as it was sliced apart. From their small boats, local fishermen will harpoon up to 26 of the whales during the three-month season. Wada is one of just four communities permitted to hunt whales.
Much of the blubber is carved into bricks that are sold to locals, most of whom have eaten whale all their lives, and the rest is sold to supermarkets.
Japan defies the International Whaling Commission's 1986 ban on commercial whaling by claiming that its catches are for scientific purposes and that the by-product of this research is not wasted.
Government line
A Japanese delegation is currently in Santiago, Chile, where the International Whaling Commission is meeting, repeating the government line that the populations of minke, sperm and fin whales have recovered sufficiently since whaling was banned for commercial hunts to be permitted.
The Australian delegation has said that Japan's scientific whaling was just a front for commercial whaling and that it must stop.
However, fresh sushi will be off the menu across Japan for a day next month after fishermen decided to have a nationwide "no fishing day" to protest at fuel prices.
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