SDHF Newsletter No.291 Counting the Blessing of Whales No.4

Counting the Blessing of Whales:
Insights from a Chopsticks-Wielding Patriot
Koizumi Takeo
Series No.4: Chapter 3 Realities in Relation to Whaling

October 28, 2020

International Whaling Commission (IWC) was founded under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1948 for the purpose of determining whale quotas.
Global environmental conservation and wild animal protection came into being around 1960, which increased anti-whaling feelings worldwide. Countries such as the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Australia completely withdrew from whaling as it ceased to be profitable. But they tried to influence IWC with this anti-whaling feeling.
In 1972, the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, wherein the U.S. proposal of a 10-year moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted by the UN Conference on the Human Environment.
However, this moratorium was not binding unless adopted by the IWC. The U.S. proposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in the IWC general assembly in 1973, which was rejected because it was “not scientifically justifiable.” Anti-whaling countries led by the U.S. then gradually implemented a more overt strategy, encouraging landlocked countries and countries that had nothing to do with whaling to join the IWC. In this way, the 10-year moratorium was enacted in 1982. While this moratorium was scheduled for review based on the latest science on whales by 1992, it has been extended and maintained to this day–the moratorium has no basis in science.
Japan conducted research whaling from 1987 to gain scientific whale biological data.
A lot of unknowns were made clear when data became available from the research. For example, in the 1970s, when accurate scientific research had yet to be conducted, an American anti-whaling ecologist, Sidney Holt, said that the population of minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean was about 20,000. But research confirmed that there were at least 760,000 minke whales. The stomachs of minke whales were examined and large volumes of walleye pollacks sauries were found. This implies that excess feeding by whales has caused the decline in coastal fishing in recent years.
The IWC, which is dominated by unscientific “scientist” like Sidney Holt, is not an organization that “provides for the proper conservation of whale stocks” but one that provides anti-whaling ideology.

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/1604/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Counting-3e.pdf

Questions are welcome.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact