Japan has just announced that it has killed a fin whale for the first time in years.
The whale, which was 64 feet long and weighed 55 tons, was caught off Iwate Prefecture by a whaling company called Kyodo Senpaku. Japan is one of the few countries that ignores international rules surrounding whale hunting. Fin whales, the second-largest animal on Earth — the blue whale is the largest — are considered “vulnerable to extinction” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The announcement comes just weeks after Captain Paul Watson was arrested in Greenland on an international arrest warrant issued by Japanese authorities.
Watson believes his arrest was related to Japan’s intention to resume whaling outside Japanese waters using a new ship called the The Kangei Maruwhich serves as a processing plant for other, smaller whaling ships.
“Despite years of defiance of the ICJ ruling, Japan ended high seas whaling in Antarctica in 2016 and now only hunts whales within its territorial waters,” the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) said in a statement at the time of Watson’s arrest. “CPWF suspects that Japan plans to resume high seas whaling in the Southern Ocean and North Pacific by 2025 and believes the reactivation of the Red Notice against Captain Watson is politically motivated and coincides with the launch of the new factory ship.”
Since May 2024, fin whales have been added to the list of species that can be caught in Japan.
“The country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has announced that it will authorize the hunting of 59 fin whales, in addition to the existing quotas for minke, Bryde’s and sei whales,” IFLScience explained.
Japan has defended its decision to add fin whales to the list by saying that their numbers in the North Pacific have increased to the point where they can be hunted sustainably. However, that explanation has been largely dismissed by most experts.
“The fin whale is the second largest animal on Earth. Targeting it in 2024 is a huge mistake for Japan, for whales, and for the international community working to protect them. We call on Japan to immediately reverse this indefensible decision,” Catherine Bell, Director of International Policy at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a statement released on Thursday. IFLScience. “There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea and we are very concerned about the welfare implications of this proposed hunt. Japanese whalers have not killed fin whales since 2011 and current harpoon operators may not have experience killing a species that is significantly larger – longer and heavier – than the largest species they currently hunt. Harpoons are generally ineffective at killing whales on impact, leading to a slow and painful death.”
A few years ago, Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission (IWC), a global panel that aims to regulate the whaling industry. Eighty-eight countries are members, but Iceland, Norway and Japan are not and still actively hunt whales. Japan was a member until 2019, when it withdrew and quickly resumed whaling.
The mail Japan kills first fin whale despite international condemnation first appeared on The slowness.
