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Japan Sends Mixed Signals on Whale Hunt

It cites tradition but denies tribe's bid to fish for salmon

By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 24, 2007 3:25 PM CST
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(Newser) – Japan has a ready defense for its internationally maligned whale hunt: Whaling is integral to Japanese culture, embedded in the country's traditional diet, literature, and religion. Yet this argument looks questionable in light of the Japanese government's refusal to allow indigenous people to continue their traditional salmon fishing, writes Bruce Wallace in an analysis for the LA Times.

Salmon has long been a staple of the diet and culture of the Ainu people of northern Japan, Wallace writes, but this doesn't stop the Japanese government from denying the Ainu the right to fish wild salmon. Japan insists it is defending tradition against emotion-fueled anti-whaling activism from the West—but won't extend that principle to the Ainu.

In this photo released by Greenpeace, a tugboat pushes the 8,044-ton Nisshin Maru, the mother ship of Japanese whaling fleet, as it leaves Shimonoseki Port in Yamaguchi Prefecture (state), western Japan, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007. The four ships headed for the waters off Antarctica, resuming a hunt that was...
In this photo released by Greenpeace, a tugboat pushes the 8,044-ton Nisshin Maru, the mother ship of Japanese whaling fleet, as it leaves Shimonoseki Port in Yamaguchi Prefecture (state), western Japan,...   (Associated Press)
A Baird's beaked whale is cleaned after it was dragged onto the port deck in Wada, Japan to be slaughtered on Thursday, June 21, 2007. The whaling firm who nabbed the whale is one of a handful of coastal whaling firms in Japan that hunt Baird's beaked and pilot whales,...
A Baird's beaked whale is cleaned after it was dragged onto the port deck in Wada, Japan to be slaughtered on Thursday, June 21, 2007. The whaling firm who nabbed the whale is one of a handful of coastal...   (Associated Press)
Children wave to Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru as four ships leave a port for a hunt that will include humpbacks for the first time in decades in Shimonoseki, southwestern Japan, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Children wave to Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru as four ships leave a port for a hunt that will include humpbacks for the first time in decades in Shimonoseki, southwestern Japan, Sunday, Nov. 18,...   (Associated Press)
Crew members of Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru wave as they depart for a hunt that will include humpbacks for the first time in decades at a port of Shimonoseki, southwestern Japan, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Crew members of Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru wave as they depart for a hunt that will include humpbacks for the first time in decades at a port of Shimonoseki, southwestern Japan, Sunday, Nov....   (Associated Press)
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EU says there are better ways to hunt whales
AFP

Conservation group to confront whalers
Telegraph (UK)

World • Green

 
environment • Japan • whale • salmon • fishing • whaling • Japanese whale hunt

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