This week: whaling during the modern era in Japan, and the circumstances that have led to Japan being one of the only first world countries that still hunts whales.
Also: allergies are still a bit rough; excuse any scratchiness, please!
Sources
Freeman, Milton MR and Stephen R. Kellert. “Public Attitudes to Whales: Results of a Six Country Survey.” Published by the school of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale, available on ResearchGate here.
Hirata, Keiko. “Why Japan Supports Whaling.” Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy 8 (2005).
Sumi, Kazuo. “The Whale War Between Japan and the United States: Problems and Prospects.” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 17, No 2 (January, 1989).
Ruegg, Jonas. “Mapping the Forgotten Colony: The Ogasawara Islands and the Tokugawa Pivot to the Pacific.” Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 23 (June, 2017).
Kalland, Arne, and Brian Moeran. Japanese Whaling: End of an Era?
Arch, Jakobina. “Ninteenth-Century Japanese Whaling and Early Territorial Expansion in the Pacific.” RCC Perspectives 5 (2019).
“M’ARTHUR OFFICE EXPLAINS WHALING; Denies Permit to the Japanese Ignored the Governments of Britain and Australia”, New York Times, July 02, 1946
A 1947 press release from SCAP on the resumption of whaling in Japan.
Verbatim Record of the IWC’s 1982 Meeting.
A Nippon.com feature on the declining rate of whale consumption in Japan.
A solid overview feature from The Diplomat on whaling in Japan.
Australian Institute of International Affairs coverage on Japan’s withdrawal from the IWC.
Images
The episode can’t be listened to and it isn’t on lybsyn to be listened to and downloaded. Please fix.
It’ll take environmental activism targeting Japanese youth so that they’ll vote against pro-whaling diet members. The Sea Shepherd shut down in the late 2010s, so it’s up to Greenpeace to keep up the fight. Even ecoterrorism hasn’t seemed to put a dent in Japanese whaling. The IUCN needs to just put all whales on the endangered species list.