14 DAY TRIAL // Under a UN moratorium, commercial whaling is forbidden around the world. However, governments such as those in Japan, Iceland and Norway disregard the rule by claiming they are harvesting whales for scientific research. Now, the United States expresses regret that Japan decided to hunt whales this year as well.
The US government believes that there is a potential for violence in this decision, since the environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) has already announced that it will block any and all attempts by the Japanese to go whaling in the Southern Ocean Marine Sanctuary.
This are – which is located north of Antarctica and south of Australia – is protected under international treaties, and yet Japanese whaling fleets, under the guise of conducting scientific research, returns there to hunt a variety of whale species year after year.
Despite assurances to the contrary, the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research, which operates the Asian nation's whaling fleet, has been proven by Greenpeace to be selling the meat of hunted whales. This is strictly forbidden under international law.
At the same time, the ICR is working hard towards painting the SSCS as a group that is breaking maritime law by interfering with their illegal hunt. The United States has remained an ally of Japan in the International Whaling Commission for years, and this is why their new statement is so surprising.
“We are very concerned about Japan continuing its whaling program in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary,. These catches will only increase the growing friction within the IWC over how to deal with the large number of whales that continue to be killed while a moratorium remains in place,” says Monica Medina.
“There is no reason to kill these creatures in order to learn about them. All the necessary science that we need for the management of whales can be achieved using non-lethal techniques,” adds the expert, who is the US commissioner to the IWC and principal deputy undersecretary of commerce for NOAA.
NOAA is the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Agency,
At the same time, the United States resent that several activist groups are threatening to use illegal, life-threatening tactics during their protests including, but not limited to, ramming their own ships into the Japanese whaling fleet.
“The safety of vessels and life at sea is the highest priority for the United States. I ask all parties to respect the Commission’s wishes and immediately refrain from any acts at sea that risk human life or safety,” Medina says in the same statement.
“These dangerous confrontations in the Southern Ocean must stop before someone gets seriously hurt or even killed,” she adds, referring to the years-long conflict between the SSCS and the Japanese whaling fleet in unambiguous terms.