[The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll and published on CanDoBetter.net, 20100116, ^http://candobetter.net/node/1778, entitled ‘Ban whaling vessels from using our ports’].

Japanese Whale Blood Sport

…at it again, trespassing and poaching in Australian waters!

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One would assume that an organisation entitled the ‘Australia Strategic Policy Institute‘ would be a government body or a body at least having Australia’s strategic interests at heart.

But its director, Dr Anthony Bergin, with a title one would assume would be capable of research, has written an article for Fairfax media supporting Japan’s strategic interests.

Bergin’s article: ‘Ban Protest Vessels from using our Ports‘ dated 16th January 2010 in The Age newspaper sides with the Japanese whalers and calls on the Australian Government to support Japan in denying protesters access to Australian ports.

Perhaps Dr Bergin should take up residency in Taiji and become an employee of  their Institute of Cetacean Research.

If Dr Bergin were respectful of the democratic rights to protest we have in Australia and recognised the Japanese incursion in Australia’s whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, and respected the existence rights of whales, then perhaps his article for Fairfax would have instead read like this…

The Australian Government has been far too even-handed in its statements about the reckless actions of the Japanese whalers trespassing in the Southern Ocean in breach of commercial whaling prohibitions.

By not condemning this annual intrusion by Japanese ships undertaking commercial whaling, Australia is in effect acquiescing in illegal poaching of whales, while Sea Shepherd does Australia’s naval monitoring of illegitimate Japanese whale poachers.  Harassment will not change Japan’s position on whaling. And not condemning these Japans actions is counterproductive for Australia trying to secure its protection of endangered whales with the International Whaling Commission.

Whale Watching: 

A Minke Whale is harpooned by the Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru 2

in Australia’s Southern Ocean

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Australia could legitimately take Japan to court and hold Japan in breach of the Antarctic Treaty at the next meeting of the commission in Morocco in June 2010.  Australia could legitimately and formally demand Japan to cease its whaling actions immediately.

Given the public interest in these matters, the Australian Government has sensibly asked the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to examine the recent events in the Southern Ocean.  Yet it is hard to see how, on any reading of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, that the ramming of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the ‘Ady Gil‘, by the Japanese whaling vessel, could argue his actions were in compliance with it.

On January 6, 2010, the New Zealand flagged tri hull wave piercer, Ady Gill, was stationary in the water at the time of the ramming and no action was taken by the Japanese whaling vessel to avoid a collision.  In fact the ship’s master the Japanese whaling ship, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2‘ deliberately turned away from its course toward starboard to deliberately ram and sink the Ady Gil.

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Japanese Attack Formation – caught on video by Sea Shepherd’s MV Bob Barker

On 6th January 2010, in Australia’s Southern Ocean, the traspassing ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ deliberately rams the stationary Ady Gil

Australia lets the ship’s master and company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha off  ‘Scott’ free!

(click image to enlarge)

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“The crew of the Ady Gil claimed that, at the last moment, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ turned to starboard, changing its heading to 30 degT6 and colliding with the port sponson and then smashing off a 3 metre section of the bow of the Ady Gil.”  

At the time the Shōnan Maru 2 was believed to be under command of Master Toshiyuki Miura, an employee of Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha.

[Source:  ‘AMSA Report on Ady Gil Collision’, ^http://www.amsa.gov.au/shipping_safety/incident_reporting/documents/amsa-report-on-ady-gil-collision.pdf]

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Watch Video:

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Piracy and criminality at sea deserve more than a token ‘fact finding report‘ that concludes nothing:

<<On the basis of the available evidence, AMSA has been unable to determine whether either vessel took any action intended to cause a collision. In the absence of face-to-face interviews with all the parties involved, the value of the publicly posted video footage was limited. The lack of confirmation of the validity of the source of this footage and therefore its limited evidentiary value prevented definitive conclusions being drawn.”>>

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Read Report:  >AMSA Report on Ady Gil Collision (2010).pdf  (22 pages, 1.1MB)

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It’s called a diplomatic whitewash.  Australia and New Zealand didn’t even receive an apology from the Japanese Government.

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To demonstrate that Australia does not support the activities of the Japanese whalers, the Australian Government should ban the entry of its vessels into Australian ports.

In deciding whether to grant consent to vessels to enter its ports, a state is free to impose conditions as it wishes – access to a port of a state is a privilege, not a right.

Australia banned port access to Japanese fishing vessels in 1998 when Japan would not agree on a total allowable catch for Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The port access ban was lifted in mid-2001. Why? It is an offence under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for a whaling vessel to call at an Australian port unless the master has written permission from the environment minister to bring it into the port.

If the Federal Government is serious about ending whaling and shifting the Japanese Government’s position – one that has hardened in response – it should directly monitor all whaling activities in the Southern Ocean, follow through on its promise to take legal action against Japan, ban all whaling vessels from Australian ports and ban all use of aircraft from Australian airports for use by Japanese whalers.

Dr Anthony Bergin needs to continue his research and then get back to us with what he has learnt.

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To Japanese Whale Sportsmen, it’s just big game fishing

It’s the thrill of the harpooning!

The whale meat doesn’t matter

The ‘research’ label is to keep Greenies distracted in courts

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Comment by Anonymous 20100117:

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<<We urgently need leadership.

How is it that whaling authorities, or ‘spies’, were allowed to hire Australian planes to spy on anti-whaling protest ships!

Where are our border controls, our security forces? Australia is a sovereign nation, one to be proud of and patriotic towards. However, we have leaders cowering to Japan’s superior powers, and all their rhetoric about “legal options” and “diplomatic pressure” are just forms of procrastination, a smoke-screen for the public.

It is becoming clear that some agreement has been made between Japan and Australia to prevent any “interference” to their whale slaughter.

Head of the Australian whaling envoy, Sandy Holloway, is set to receive up to $200,000 for 100 days work. Costs could escalate to one million dollars as bureaucrats travel the globe in a futile effort to stop Japan killing whales.

Mr Holloway’s ‘formal representations’ to Japan, on a $1,800 a day retainer, were designed to fail and are really an expensive smokescreen to fool the Australian public.

Such was the ambiguity of diplomatic pressure that Japan even asked Australia for help against the “eco-terrorists” upholding the laws in the Antarctic!

Public money is being wasted. Australia’s Antarctic Territory, a $300 million whale-watching industry, domestic and international laws and Treaties are being abandoned in an effort to secure economic agreements with Japan.

Our government’s “anti-whaling” stance, despite pre-election pledges, is a charade.  It is time we see some leadership from our Federal government and have Japan’s illegal whaling fleet permanently removed from the Antarctic.  We urgently need leadership at this time, but clearly we won’t be getting it from our present government!>>

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Comment by Peter Bright   (20100117):

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The Prime Minister has to overview the whole picture in the national interest, long term as well as short term. Although a Green, I believe that he and his government are being unfairly criticised and insultingly abused with insufficient cause.

A better understanding of any problem may sometimes be gleaned by putting oneself in the position of one’s despised target and considering matters from his point of view.
To protect the welfare of this nation Mr Rudd has to very carefully consider the reciprocal benefits of trade between Australia and Japan, as well as a whole lot of other factors and subterranean international innuendos the likes of which we could only guess at. Mr Rudd surely realises this, and so do his advisors.

In Mr Rudd’s position, with his huge and numerous responsibilities, I would not expect to last even a minute. Personally, I’m grateful he’s there.

Because of trade matters, and in the interests of keeping the peace, I suspect that the Japanese whalers down south could ram half the Australian navy without provoking Mr Rudd into showing retaliatory muscle.

Of course if I was the commander of an Australian naval ship that had just been rammed down there, I would, um, deal with the problem there and then.

It’s likely that my response would be something less than one fully loaded with diplomatic tact and courtesy.

[Ed:  Like seizing and impounding the Japanese vessels, arresting the crews, and summoning the Japanese ambassador to the Australian Prime Minister’s office.]

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If Australia’s Prime Minister sides with Japan against Australia, what right does Rudd have to represent Australia as Prime Minister.

Rudd already sides with China and speaks fluent Chinese. Does he have similar allegiances to Japan?

Australia must escort Japanese vessels (which have a home territory 5000 or more kilometres north) out of Australian waters.  Rudd has become a treacherous Prime Minister, favouring the rights of foreign powers over Australian sovereign rights. In doing so, Rudd has breached the Australian Constitution and must be sacked immediately.

1. Australian Antarctic Territory breached

2. Whale Protection Act, 1980 breached ‘Part I – Preliminary 6. Application of Act

(1)   This Act extends to every external Territory and, except so far as the contrary intention appears, to acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia, whether or not in a foreign country.

(2)   Subject to subsection (3):

(a)    to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to any waters or place beyond the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone, that provision applies only in relation to Australian citizens domiciled in Australia, Australian aircraft and Australian vessels and the members of the crew (including persons in charge) of Australian aircraft and Australian vessels; and

(b)   to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to Australia or any waters other than waters referred to in paragraph (a), that provision applies in relation to all persons, aircraft and vessels, including foreign persons, foreign aircraft and foreign vessels.

(3)    This Act has effect subject to the obligations of Australia under international law, including obligations under any agreement between Australia and another country or countries.

 

Part II – Preservation, conservation and protection of whales

9. Killing, taking etc. of whales prohibited

(1) A person shall not:

(a)  in waters to which this Act applies, kill, injure, take or interfere with any whale; or

(b)  treat any whale that has been killed or taken in contravention of this Act or has been unlawfully imported. ‘

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Japanese whalers keep poaching whales in Australian territorial waters contravention of Australia’s Whales Protection Act.  Kevin Rudd, as Australia’s Prime Minister is dutifully bound to protect Australia’s sovereignty and enforce Australian legislation. But he is not.
3. Prime Minister’s failure to enforce Australian territorial legislation constitutes a breach of the Australian Constitution The COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 122 ‘ Government of territories’ states:

“The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any territory placed by the Queen under the authority of and accepted by the Commonwealth, or otherwise acquired by the Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.”

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Under the COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 120 ‘Custody of offenders against laws of the Commonwealth’

‘Every State shall make provision for the detention in its prisons of persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effect to this provision.’

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Australia’s federal parliament has enacted the above legislation. The Japanese whalers have breached those laws, yet our Prime Minister fails to enforce these laws. But Rudd lets them go unpunished.

Indeed, Rudd is so appeasing of the Japanese as to be in allegiance with Japanese interests to the detriment of Australia’s interests. Under Section 44 of the Constitution sets out restrictions on who can be a candidate for Federal parliament.

It reads:“

‘Section 44 (i). Any person who..is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power…shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.’

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So Australia’s Prime Minister Rudd needs to work out whether he is siding with Japan or Australia.

If Rudd recognises Australian Antarctic Territorial Waters, then he needs to uphold and enforce Australia law.

If he sides with the Japanese, he is in breach of Section 44 and must be sacked from the House of Representatives forthwith. Q.E.D.

I also refer to a pertinent well researched letter by Mr Graham J. Clarke (President of Whales in Danger) dated 6th January 2003 to Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp.   I also point out that since the Prime Minister has confirmed he will challenge Japan legally on this issue, indicates that the Australian Government considers Japanese whalers have breached the law and have a case to answer.

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Comment from Vivienne (20100306):

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<<What a disgrace our Federal leaders are! Instead of arresting the criminal whale killers, they actually act on their behalf and use our AFP to “investigate” Sea Shepherd.

What about Peter Buthane held captive? The cowards we have in government are grovelling to Japan to ensure safe trading relationships and “friendship”, and protected whales are just ignored.

Japan’s bogus “research” is a cover to return to commercial whaling, and due to our government’s incompetence and ignorance, Japan is winning the wars against whales.

This is a totally contemptible action by our Federal government, using the taxpayer-funded AFP contrary to our Australian interests. They have surrendered Antarctic security, and the blood of magnificent and gentle whales are heading towards becoming just another red meat!.”

..Trade with Japan is a different topic. Our economic relationship with Japan should not depend on their being allowed to audaciously break International and domestic laws and treaties. According the the Federal Court, 2008, we would be quite within our rights to stop Japan’s illegal whaling. Whether they are arrested and impounded should not depend on the economic power of the law-breaking nation. Setting a precedent that allows powerful nations to break the laws in our economic zones is dangerous and unfair.

Kevin Rudd is morally obliged to complete his pre-election promises and force Japan to respect our sovereignty. Anything else maligns us to being nothing but cowardly.

“Protected” whales are not political or economic pawns to be traded or betrayed so cruelly.>>

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[This article was first published by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net on 20100416 under the same title].

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Japanese contempt for whales, dolphins and sharks has highlihghted to the world the backward culture of this part of traditional Japanese society. Japanese whalers and fishing corporations have made Japan the pariah of the world’s oceans.

The Japanese lie of scientific whaling has become a cliched euphemism. Now the science has been officially confirmed as a fraud, as if we didn’t already know.

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The following article has just been published in the online Science Daily:

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‘DNA analysis suggests whale meat from sushi restaurants in L.A. and Seoul originated from Japan’

[Source: ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010]

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“An international team of Oregon State University scientists, documentary filmmakers and environmental  advocates has uncovered an apparent illegal trade in whalemeat, linking whales killed in Japan’s controversial scientific whaling program to sushi restaurants in Seoul, South Korea, and Los Angeles, Calif.

Genetic analysis of sashimi served at a prominent Los Angeles sushi restaurant in October of 2009 has confirmed that the strips of raw meat purchased by filmmakers of the Oscar-winning documentary, “The Cove,” came from a sei whale — most likely from Japanese “scientific whaling.”

Do you want dolphin with that? ‘Scientists have identified four species of whales and one species of dolphin from a plate of sashimi, like this one sold in a restaurant in Seoul. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Louie Psihoyos, Oceanic Preservation Society)’

“The sequences were identical to sei whale products that had previously been purchased in Japan in 2007 and 2008, which means they not only came from the same area of the ocean — but possibly from the same distinct population,” said Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, who conducted the analysis.
“And since the international moratorium on commercial hunting (1986), there has been no other known source of sei whales available commercially other than in Japan,” Baker added. “This underscores the very real problem of the illegal international trade of whalemeat products.”

Results of the study were published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.  “The Cove” director Louie Psihoyos and assistant director Charles Hambleton gained the attention of international news media recently by covertly filming the serving of whale products at The Hump restaurant.

Following initial identification of the samples taken from the restaurant, the products were turned over to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s law enforcement division and in March, federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against the restaurant, which since has closed.  Baker said the samples taken from The Hump cannot conclusively be linked to an individual whale because genetic identity records of animals killed through Japan’s scientific whaling are not released by the Japanese government. In their paper in Biology Letters, Baker and 10 co-authors — including “The Cove” filmmakers — call for Japan to share its DNA register of whales taken from that country’s scientific whaling program and “bycatch” whaling.

“Our ability to use genetics as a tool to monitor whale populations around the world has advanced significantly over the past few years,” Baker said, “but unless we have access to all of the data — including those whales killed under Japan’s scientific whaling — we cannot provide resource managers with the best possible science.
“This is not just about better control of whaling itself,” Baker added, “but getting a better handle on the international trade of whale products.”

In their paper published in Biology Letters, lead author Baker and colleagues from the Korean Federation of Environmental Movements also report on 13 whale products purchased at a sushi restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, during two 2009 visits. The sushi was part of a mixed plate of “whale sashimi,” and genetic testing by Baker and OSU’s Debbie Steel determined that four of the products were from an Antarctic minke whale, four were from a sei whale, three were from a North Pacific minke whale, one was from a fin whale, and one was from a Risso’s dolphin.

Further testing by collaborators from Seoul National University confirmed the individual identity of the whale products by DNA “profiling.”  The DNA profile of the fin whale meat from the Seoul restaurant genetically matched products purchased by Baker’s colleague, Naoko Funahashi, in Japanese markets in 2007 — strongly suggesting it came from the same whale.
“Since the international moratorium, it has been assumed that there is no international trade in whale products,” Baker said. “But when products from the same whale are sold in Japan in 2007 and in Korea in 2009, it suggests that international trade, though illegal, is still an issue. Likewise, the Antarctic minke whale is not found in Korean waters, but it is hunted by Japan’s controversial scientific whaling program in the Antarctic.

“How did it show up in a restaurant in Seoul?”

Baker has developed an international reputation for his research in determining the origin of whalemeat products sold in markets around the world. His research on identification of dolphin meat contaminated with high levels of mercury was featured in “The Cove,” where he worked with Psihoyos and Hambleton. In their paper, the authors describe the long legacy of falsifying whale catch records, beginning with the Soviet Union, which failed to account for more than 100,000 whales it killed in the 20th century. This illegal, unreported or unregulated whaling “continues today under the cover of incidental fisheries bycatch and scientific whaling.”

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Japanese love slaughtering dolphins too!

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Each year at a cove near Taiji on the south east cost of central Japan, thousands of bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales are slaughtered by the Japanese. The cull is endorsed by the Japanese goivernment to commence on 1st September every year.

Bottlenose Dolphin, confimed as one of the most intelligent animals on the planet Typically, over six months the town’s fishermen will catch over 2,000 of Japan’s annual quota of 20,000
dolphins.   Dolphin slaughter turns sea red as Japan hunting season returns “In a typical hunt the fishermen pursue pods of dolphins across open seas, banging metal poles together beneath the water to confuse their hypersensitive sonar. The exhausted animals are driven into a large cove sealed off by nets to stop them escaping and dragged backwards into secluded inlets the following morning to be butchered with knives and spears. They are then loaded on to boats and taken to the quayside to be cut up in a warehouse, the fishermen’s work hidden from the outside by heavy shutters.

‘Tensions have been rising and the culls conducted in near-secrecy since 2003, when two members of the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd released several dolphins that were being kept in an enclosure ready to be slaughtered.

During our visit we were followed at almost every turn, ordered not to take photographs and questioned by the police, who seem to view every foreign visitor as a potential hunt saboteur. None of the residents who agreed to talk would reveal their names, and requests for comments from the town office were ignored.  Criticism of the dolphin hunts intensified this summer with the release of the award-winning US documentary The Cove, whose makers used remote-controlled helicopters and hidden underwater cameras to record the hunters at work. The film was released in the UK last October.

The film, with its graphic footage of the dolphin slaughter, sparked outrage after its release in the US and Australia. Last month councillors in the Australian coastal town of Broome suspended its 28-year sister-city relationship with Taiji after receiving thousands of emails protesting at the culls.

Japanese annual dolphin slaughter at The Cove, Taiji, Japan

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Taiji is regarded as the spiritual home of Japan’s whaling industry. The first hunts took place in the early 1600s, according to the town’s whaling museum, but the industry went into decline after the introduction of a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986.  The town, a six-hour train ride from Tokyo, is dotted with restaurants serving whale and dolphin sashimi and cetacean iconography appears on everything from the pavements and bridge balustrades to road tunnels and a wind turbine.”

[Source: ‘Dolphin slaughter turns sea red as Japan hunting season returns’, by Justin McCurry, The Guardian, 14-Sep-09, ^http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/14/dolphin-slaughter-hunting-japan-taiji].

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Call to boycott Japanese restaurants

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This slaughter of whales, dolphins and endangered fish such as Bluefin and sharks confirms the barbaric backwardness of traditional cultures in east Asia. Japan clearly is making a point to highlight its backwardness.

Around the world, including in Australia, Japanese restaurants continue to serve up Bluefin Tuna and Shark Fin soup and probably ‘scientific’ whale meat and dolphin. It is a disgrace!
Bluefin is critically endangered and both the scalloped hammerhead shark and whitetip shark “have seen their numbers drop dramatically since the 1980s, due to rising demand for shark fin soup especially among China’s nouveau rich and for fish and chips in Europe. Surging demand for shark fin soup among Asia’s booming middle classes is driving many species of these big fish to the brink of extinction.”

[Source: ‘Sharks threatened by Asian consumers, says Group’ Michael Casey, AP, 16 March 2010, ^http://www.physorg.com/news187936927.html]

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In this March 8, 2010 photo, a woman walks past shark fins displayed in a glass case at a dried seafood shop in Hong Kong.

Shark Fins for sale in Hoing Kong

^http://www.physorg.com/news187936927.html

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The following example Japanese restaurants in Australia sell Bluefin and shark fin. It is time Australians boycotted such trades perpetuating wildlife extinctions.

* SYDNEY: Blue Fin Seafood Restaurant, Brighton-Le-Sands Amateur Fishermans Club, Bestic St, Brighton-Le-Sands NSW 2216
* MELBOURNE: Blue Fin, 342 Brunswick St, Fitzroy VIC 3065
* BRISBANE: Oishii Sushi Bar Shop2/70 Pinelands Rd Sunnybank Hills, Brisbane

 

Don’t buy Japanese – it only perpetuate’s Japan’s arrogance

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Back in 2000, Australia and New Zealand sought an international ruling at the International Court of Justice under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) against Japan’s fishing of Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Southern Ocean.

Ridiculously, the court found that it had no jurisdiction to make binding rulings on Japan’s access to high seas fisheries, and that Japan can make “its own unilateral decisions as to what to fish, and where.”

So Japan continued to unilaterally embarke on a three year “Experimental Fishing Program” (EFP), that…is we want the tuna and no-one is getting in our way!
Last month at CITES COP15 meeting, Monaco had called for a global ban on bluefin tuna fishing by CITES, arguing despite stocks having fallen by about 85%, the organisation responsible for managing the bluefin fishery – the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – had not implemented measures strict enough to ensure the species’ survival. Australia voted against the ban, supporting Japan. ICCAT is due to meet on the bluefin issue on 14 June 2010 in Madrid Spain.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Ocean, the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna is a voluntary fishery management group comprised of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines as a formal cooperating non-member. Much of the Southern Bluefin Tuna catch ends up in Japan where it is prized as sushi and sushimi.
Australia’s tuna fishing industry is based in Port Lincoln in South Australia. Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Taiwanese Bluefin tuna fleets use long line fishing which results in the incidental deaths of thousands of seabirds, particularly petrels and albatross.

For over 20 years Japan has plundered the Southern Bluefin Tuna Fishery under its unilaterally imposed ‘Experimental Fishing Program (EFP)’, similar in deception as ‘Japanese scientific whaling’. According to Humane Society International, the Scientific Committee to the Commission has estimated the SBT population is at a mere 3-8% of its pre-exploitation biomass.

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It is time to boycott Japanese sushi, sushimi, seafood restaurants and indeed all Japanese products, until Japan’s arrogant poaching of protected and endangered marine life is stopped!

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Japanese carving up Minke Whale

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