"Scientific whaling" is getting the most whales with the least effort? -)
The native tribes in Alaska eat and make use of a lot of the whales they kill.
What I don't know is how much of the whale the Japanese eat and find a use for.
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"Japan's scientific whaling is just commercial whaling in disguise."
It is probably the criticism most often levelled at Japan's whaling programme, one of only three in the world currently to target the "great whales".
But is it fair criticism?
In the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), housed in an anonymous building near the docks in downtown Tokyo, the organisation's director-general Hiroshi Hatanaka explains the purpose of the Antarctic and North Pacific programmes which he supervises.
"The mission of this institute is to conduct research and surveys on cetacean resources," he tells me; "that is, to conduct biological research and surveys on cetacean resource abundance and to make good use of it for the sustainable use and rational management of cetacean resources.
The Japanese input into cetacean research in Antarctica is significant, and I would say crucial
Arne Bjorge, IWC
"The (International Whaling Commission or IWC) moratorium was introduced because at that time there was not enough biological data to secure that commercial whaling was free from danger (to cetacean resources)."
The ICR and the Japanese government's Fisheries Agency believe that if enough of the right sort of data can be collected, they can go back to the IWC and prove scientifically that some whale stocks are robust enough to allow a degree of sustainable commercial hunting.
"There are certain kinds of data that we can get remotely through observation and tagging and other kinds of non-invasive methodology," he tells me from Notre Dame University in the US where he currently edits an ecology journal.
"But... you have really got to use more invasive techniques in order to get certain answers that you're looking for."
Another factor behind the lethal component of Japan's research is money. Sending ships to the Antarctic for months at a time is expensive, costing thousands of dollars per day; and sales of meat from the whaling programme, some taking place in the vast Tsukiji fish market just around the corner from ICR, pay for most, though not all, of the research.
Perhaps the most important driving force is exactly what the ICR says it is; to "resolve the scientific uncertainties and pave the way for a resumption of sustainable whaling".
Whether it is justified, I think, depends on your point of view. If you believe that no whales should be killed as a matter of principle, clearly scientific hunting makes no sense; it is just as unethical as commercial whaling.
But if you believe that whales are no different from other wild animals, that there is no compelling ethical reason why they cannot can be hunted and eaten like boars and deer and salamanders, then Japan's logic begins to emerge.
Officially, the 1982 IWC moratorium was not a complete halt to whaling but a pause; and Japan hopes the data it gathers will eventually convince the IWC on scientific grounds that commercial whaling can be licensed again.
and not one mention of a faux-vicious whale attack was made in the posting of this article.
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