New Zealand Criticizes Japanese Whaling

Updated Jan. 6, 2014 12:36 p.m. ET

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has released footage of dead whales aboard a Japanese vessel, alleging the ship’s crew has violated a whaling ban by disguising commercial fishing as research.

WELLINGTON—New Zealand criticized Japan’s seasonal resumption of whaling in the Southern Ocean on Monday after environmental activists released video of four dead whales on a Japanese vessel that they allege was in an internationally designated sanctuary for the mammals.
“The practice of whaling in the oceans south of New Zealand is pointless and offensive to a great many New Zealanders,” Foreign Minister Murray McCully said after the Sea Shepherd activist group published the footage on its website. “The government has repeatedly called on Japan to end its whaling program.”
Commercial whaling is banned in a 31-million-square-mile area around Antarctica called the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. But member nations of the International Whaling Commission that imposed the ban—including Japan—are permitted to let their citizens hunt whales for scientific purposes.
According to Sea Shepherd, the Japanese boats were operating within the sanctuary “in contravention of the 1986 global moratorium on commercial whaling under the guise of scientific research.”
Japan denies any misconduct, saying its whaling is done for scientific, not commercial, reasons and therefore is compliant with global conventions.
Sid Chakravarty, captain of one of the Sea Shepherd boats, said by phone his organization released the videos because the Japanese whaling was “slaughter and killing out-and-out and shouldn’t continue to be labeled as science and research anymore.”
Opponents of whaling say the creatures are killed only ostensibly for research, noting that meat and other byproducts of the kill are sold commercially. Whale oil is used in some makeup products and the meat is regarded as a delicacy that can fetch up to ¥4,000 (US$38) for 100 grams in Japan.
Clashes between environmentalists and Japanese whalers have become an annual event, occasionally sparking diplomatic tensions with neighbors in the region.
Australia said it was committed to overseeing Japan’s whaling activity but that the current incident hadn’t occurred in its monitoring zone.
Australia, with New Zealand’s backing, is pressing the International Court of Justice to designate Japan’s “large-scale” whaling under its research program to be in breach of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
Japan last month said it had issued permits allowing its whalers to catch up to 935 Antarctic minkes, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks as part of research into sustainable hunting of the creatures.
Last season, Japanese whalers killed 103 minke whales, which migrate to Antarctic waters to find food in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer months.
—Rob Taylor in Canberra and Alexander Martin in Tokyo contributed to this article.
Write to Lucy Craymer at Lucy.Craymer@wsj.com

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