Whale On the Plate

By Unmesh Kher, Toko Sekiguchi/ Tokyo

A little after noon one Monday in late January, a buzz of anticipation filled the cafeteria of the No. 1 Elementary School in the sleepy former whaling town of Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. Thanks to the exertions of the local fisheries association and board of education, the 21 young scholars in the room were about to get a special treat with their workaday portions of milk, rice, salad and mandarin oranges: marinated, deep-fried fillet of whale. The greasy feast was one of 704 similar lunches the board has provided to 339 schools in the prefecture since January 2005. "Reaction from parents has been uniformly positive," declared principal Yukio Hamanaka. Ditto for the students, who played paper-rock-scissors to divvy up seconds.

The lunch was part of a campaign launched by Japan's central and local governments to save the country's most controversial cuisine from extinction. Even as Japan steps up efforts to end the 19-year moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), its seafood-loving citizens are less and less enthusiastic about tucking into the catch. As a result, trade inventories of the tough, gamy meat have climbed 1,000 tons since the late 1990s, to around 3,000 tons today--about as much as gets eaten annually. The average Japanese, who clearly prefers watching whales to eating them, ingests barely an ounce of the meat each year, compared with 13 lbs. of beef, 22 lbs. of chicken and 79 lbs. of fish.

Japan is grimly determined, however, to expand its whaling business, in part as cover for its $14 billion commercial fishing industry, which is increasingly being targeted by other environmental bodies. Although slackening demand has pushed wholesale prices of whale meat down 10% to 30% over the past year alone, it remains costly, at a wholesale rate that ranges between $3.70 and $70 per lb., depending on the cut. The marbled tail meat is prized by connoisseurs, as is whale sashimi, which is eaten with grated ginger or garlic to mask the odor. "I've had the meat," says Miki Ikari, 30, an account manager in Tokyo, "and I wasn't impressed. It could disappear from the earth, and I wouldn't miss it one bit."

That isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Like its whaling ally Iceland, Japan gets its meat by exploiting a loophole in the IWC's moratorium that permits members to cull whales for scientific study--a practice cetologists now consider mostly unnecessary because of advances in tracking and dna technology. The hunting itself is done by Japan's only whaling fleet, owned by Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha of Tokyo, a ship-chartering firm. Sales of the meat are used solely to fund Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), which conducts the studies. "The IWC convention stipulates that any by-product be processed and used," explains Hideki Moronuki of the Fisheries Agency. But independent scientists say the slaughter is wildly disproportionate to the research it produces.

There will be plenty to process when Kyodo Senpaku's fleet returns this month. Japan has in recent years steadily upped the number of whales it harpoons around the Antarctic, despite repeated condemnations from the IWC. The group last year voted against the country's plans to expand its quota; Japan has done so anyway. This year its "scientific" expedition is scheduled to haul in 1,240 whales, mainly minkes, but also 100 sei whales, 10 sperm whales and 10 fin whales, all of which are endangered. That's twice as many as were taken in 2000, more than even the number hauled in by Norway, which simply ignores the moratorium. Next year Japan plans to bag 50 humpbacks, the endangered giants famous for their spectacular breaches and eerie subaqueous songs. Stanford University cetologist Stephen Palumbi says their addition to the scientific catch will confound attempts to monitor poaching through the dna testing of meat, a method that has proved remarkably effective in recent years.

Frustrated by Japan's defiance of the IWC--and the nation's insistence on hunting in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica--Greenpeace led a campaign this year to boycott goods sold by companies with a stake in Kyodo Senpaku, including Nippon Suisan Kaisha, better known as Nissui. The $4.3 billion conglomerate owns Gorton's, one of the largest suppliers of frozen seafood in the U.S. Late last month Kyodo Senpaku abruptly announced that Nissui and four other firms that held a stake in the company would donate their shares to "public interest" corporations, including the ICR. The firms involved insist that the boycott had nothing to do with their decision. But their withdrawal effectively ends corporate Japan's engagement in whaling.

The government isn't backing down. Japan's official line is that its culture is entwined with whaling. Some Japanese communities have a long tradition of hunting whales, but the meat wasn't eaten widely until the lean years after World War II, when it provided an abundant supply of protein during chronic food shortages. The average Japanese was eating only 13 oz. of the meat annually by 1980, seven years before the IWC moratorium took effect.

Still, while most Japanese may not care for the meat, many object to calls to stop whaling. "I couldn't care less if I don't eat another whale until the day I die," says Kenji Yamashiro, 35, a systems engineer in Tokyo. "But I don't like to be told what I can or can't eat by anyone other than my doctor."

Above all, Japan's stance on whaling stems from concerns about what it considers the excessive regulation of marine resources--a crucial issue for a country that consumes a third of the world's catch of tuna. Japan has repeatedly been accused of overfishing. "If we allow whaling to be banned on the basis of unscientific reasons and value judgments," says Moronuki, "the [restrictions] may extend to other fisheries as well."

So Japan has been doling out aid to developing members of the IWC, such as the Pacific islands of Nauru and Tuvalu, to line up support ahead of the annual meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis this June. "If the pro-whaling forces succeed in achieving a simple majority this year," says Australia's Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, who locked horns with Japanese delegates last year, "it'll set back the cause of conservation." For one thing, Japan will be able to put an end to those pesky condemnations of its scientific quota. Ending the moratorium, however, would require the support of 75% of the IWC membership, and Campbell says that won't happen. But then, as far as Japan is concerned, absolute victory is probably beside the point.

With reporting by Lisa Clausen/ Melbourne, Yuki Oda/ Tokyo