You racially and culturally excluding dietary NZ fascists should have a better appreciation of ethnic forelock tugging required here.

Cutting edge as you are.

The money helps offset the costs of running the programmes.

Whether the programmes are necessary or not depends on your perspective regarding whether sustainable utilization of marine resources. Japan’s policy is in favour of such utilization. They deem the research programmes necessary, and I suspect will continue to do so for as long as Japan exists as a nation.

From the perspective of people who don’t like others eating whale meat and wanting them to stop, since the Japanese government isn’t making a profit out of the activity, then indeed I understand that to people holding such views it would seem unnecessary.

Japan’s perspective is different however, and unfortunately (I think) it doesn’t get much decent coverage in the western media.

You are quite right to point out that demand and consumption are different things.

In terms of prices, what has happened since the mid 1990′s is Japan expanded the scope of it’s research programmes.

Initially it was only taking up to 330 minkes in the Antarctic, but they later broadened the size of their “research area” in the Antarctic Ocean, and added 110 more minkes to their “sample size”. Subsequently they also commenced a research programme in the western north pacific, which has also seen additional species gradually added, and most recently the scope of the programme in the Antarctic was increased (400 minkes became 850, plus fin whales and humpbacks). So, as a result there is at least twice as much whale meat coming on to the market today than there was a decade or so ago, although the market still has far less meat today than it had during the commercial whaling era.

I believe the main driver behind price decreases has been the Japanese government. They regulate the price of the whale meat at auction so as to offset the costs of the research programmes that is not bourne by the Japanese taxpayer. With more whales being caught in recent times, they have been able to lower prices and still cover these costs. This is just wholesale prices though – the middlemen and retailers are apparently able to set the price of the products however they see fit, and it remains relatively expensive, although even people like me can afford it once in a while now.

As for your main point, indeed Japan’s research whaling programmes do rely on public funds to continue, in addition to whale meat sales. Whether the research whaling programmes constitute a “whaling industry” or not is another argument Currently “whaling industry” is effectively banned, internationally.

The main point I was making was to correct the claim that the whaling industry (whether it is seen as a research industry or a food industry) relies on subsidies for it’s survival as it is not profitable.

While my comments on whaling are more broad brush ‘position statements’ drawn from my overall observations, you have obviously looked into the subject in some depth, so thank you for your observations.

I am often surprised by the breadth and depth of knowledge people who comment on this and other blogs can contribute. The power of the internet is amazing. Cheers.

It’s correct that the Japanese Government, which sponsors the JARPA programme in the Antarctic, does not make money out of it. However, it was never intended that it would make money. While many in the west buy the anti-whaling line that “research whaling is commercial whaling in disguise”, people in Japan do in fact believe that research whaling is for research, not commercial profit. Revenue from the whale meat that is sold into the distribution chain here is put towards offsetting some of the costs of the research in the following year (around 80-90%, I believe), the taxpayers make up the difference.

However, it may be misleading to suggest that “demand for whale meat has been declining rapidly”.

Due to the IWC’s commercial whaling moratorium (which Japan, Norway, Iceland, Russia, South Korea, China, Denmark and others including many many developing countries think is now unnecessary and should be overturned) there is a relatively limited supply of whale meat in Japan, and most of the meat available is through the research programmes the government runs (there are other legal sources of meat, too though). However, the research programmes produce only about a fifth of the amount of meat that was produced just prior to the imposition of the moratorium in the 1980′s.

So, I argue that it’s more appropriately to look at how “supply for whale meat declined rapidly”, than point to demand side effects.

In fact, increases in the scope of the research programmes in recent years have led to more whale meat being made available on the Japanese market. This has seen consumption increase significantly. On my blog I follow official statistics from Japan’s ministry of Agriculture Forests and Fisheries that cover stocks of marine products, including whale meat. The trend is quite clear: When there is more whale meat -> Consumption increases; When there is less whale meat, or no increase in whale meat -> Consumption decreases, or stagnates. People can only eat as much meat as is available. As for prices, while they are down from highs hit in the 1990′s, whale remains relatively expensive compared to subsitutes like Kiwi beef.

More unnecessary because they don’t make money out of it. The demand for whale meat has been declining rapidly, the industry only stays afloat (so to speak) because of large subsidies from the government.

People who don’t like the idea of whales like to frame it as an “endangered species” argument, because it sounds far more persuaive than just saying “oh but gee I like whales, please don’t kill them because I say so”. Then it’s just a matter of how many people you can fool into believing what you say.

Well then it’s fortunate for the whales that a very large number of Greenpeace supporters around the world *like whales*…

What if the Indians who regard cows as sacred started to get all militant towards NZ?

david@tokyo, yes, exactly. However, “Fuck the wales. Save the humans” is still a very solid pholosophical platform, isn’t it? hehehehehe………

The idea of whaling for food is to harvest whales in such a way as to ensure that you’ll be able to harvest the same amount of whales (or more) next year, forever.

People who don’t like the idea of whales like to frame it as an “endangered species” argument, because it sounds far more persuaive than just saying “oh but gee I like whales, please don’t kill them because I say so”. Then it’s just a matter of how many people you can fool into believing what you say.