PACIFIC: Japanese whale hunt set to start
Updated
Japanese whaling ships begin their annual hunt in the Southern Ocean in the next few weeks, while environmental groups are vowing to stop them. Japan intends to kill a thousand whales this year as part of what it calls a scientific research project, which opponents label an excuse to kill whales for food. But with Japan for the first time in decades about to target fifty Humpback whales, environmentalists have come up with a new technique to publicise the issue.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Nan Hauser, President & Director Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation in Rarotonga; Anouf Havai, whale guide; Samiu Vai Pulu, MP & businessman,
HILL: As the whales begin their yearly migration from the waters of the South Pacific, where the females have given birth, their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean, the other annual ritual begins, with environmental groups and Japanese whalers clashing over Japan's right to kill the ocean going mammals.
The global environmental organisation, Greenpeace, has hit on a new strategy to publicise the plight of the Humpbacks, having tagged several of them with beacons, enabling their movements to be tracked by satellite and that information made available on the internet.
Whale researcher, Nan Hauser, whose based in the Cook Islands, says they want to show that scientific information about whales can be obtained without any of them needing to be harmed.
HAUSER: Well, it's very interesting, not only scientifically to see where these whales go and how they travel and who they travel with, but where they go to feed in Antarctica. Because the whales across Oceania come to mate and give birth and they don't eat. They migrate and they fast for 6 to 8 months, so they have to go back to Antarctica to eat. And the problem is even though we've created all these whale sanctuaries throughout Oceania, once they live the sanctuary, they can be hunted by the Japanese in their so-called scientific research project, which is just so unfair. Because we depend on the whales for not only the culture of all these islands, and they've been a huge part for hundreds and thousands actually, thousands of years a huge part of the culture, but also for whale watching. A lot of the islands across Oceania they make a living by whale watching and protecting the whale.
HILL: That's certainly true in Tonga, where whale watching is a major tourist drawcard in the northern Vavu'a Island group. One of the guides who takes tourists out to swim with the whales, Alufa Havai says it's a remarkable experience.
HAVAI: Yeah, these whales are singing so loud and then when you're in the water, it's different. You feel like they very close to you.
HILL: A local member of parliament and businessman in Vavu'a, Samiu Vai Pulu doesn't buy the argument from some that some whales could be killed and eaten by Tongans, without necessarily endangering the whale watching industry.
VAI PULU: They should be saved for our future generations. There's a lot of food here in Tonga I should say and no-one in Tonga has died of malnutrition. There's a lot of food. We are obese, we are too fat, because we eat too much.
HILL: Whale researcher, Nan Hauser, says Greenpeace's Humpback satellite tracking program is designed to get people around the world to understand the creatures better and to demonstrate that the Japanese scientific whale cull is unnecessary.
HAUSER: Well, we're trying to say that if these whales migrate to areas 5 and 6 where the Japanese want to start killing Humpbacks and actually where they will start killing Humpbacks within the next few weeks actually. They will not know where the Humpback came from that they are killing and we want to say we know they came from the vulnerable populations across Oceania. These animals are already very fragile and that by you killing any of them, could have devastating affects on the population.
HILL: So, you're really trying to suggest that, that you can study them more effectively your way, than by killing some?
HAUSER: Well, of course we can and we've already had a response from the Japanese saying well by satellite tagging you can't tell whether it's male or female or whether it's pregnant or what the animal eats. But, yes we can, because we get a biopsy dart, a little piece of skin, and blubber from every whale and we can tell if it's male or female and we know what the whales eat, because they've died and we've been cutting them open for years and we know exactly what they eat. They eat krill and if they're pregnant what's the point in killing them to find out if they're pregnant or not.
HILL: If you're going to satellite tag these whales and put their location up on a web site. What's to stop the Japanese downloading the Greenpeace web site and saying are the whales there and going and killing them?
HAUSER: Well, we thought of that and so we delay the results actually. So when you look at the web site, it doesn't give you the accurate position for the date and time.
