Largest whale kill in 20 years

As Japan’s whaling fleet returned home yesterday from its Antarctic hunt with the largest kill of whales in over 20 years, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) exposes the international seafood giant Maruha’s involvement in Japan’s whaling and calls on it to use it’s influence to help stop the killing of the world’s whales.

In 1999, in response to international pressure against those profiting from ‘scientific’ whaling, the Maruha Corporation sold its 31% share in Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd., the company that carries out the whaling under contract to the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR). However, the sale was merely a smokescreen as Maruha sold most of the shares to Taiyo A&F Co Ltd., a company Mahura had been associated with since 1965, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary.

As well as owning part of the whaling company, Taiyo A&F purchases, processes and sells whalemeat from the ‘scientific’ catch in retail outlets across Japan, and Taiyo’s President is a Director on the Board of Kyodo Senpaku. Thus Maruha’s supposed exit from whaling has not taken place.

Less than one month ago Kyodo Senpaku announced that “in view of the scientific and public-interest nature” of its activities, its present shareholders, including Taiyo, would be transferring all shares to the ICR and other public interest companies. The transfer will include the entire whaling fleet, enabling the new shareholders to continue ‘lethal research’ on whales in the protected waters of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. Japan’s ‘scientific’ whaling has been repeatedly criticised by International Whaling Commission (IWC), the only international organisation with a mandate to manage and conserve whale populations.

Clare Perry, EIA’s Cetacean Campaign Manager, said: “Maruha is the world’s largest seafood company with a global constituency that does not support whaling. Right now it has a strong position of influence over Japan’s whaling and it should use this influence to make amends for its contribution to the destruction of the world’s whale populations. We are calling on Maruha and Taiyo to immediately stop all sales of whalemeat, and to stipulate in the share transfer that Kyodo Senpaku’s fleet will only be used for non-lethal research.”

Maruha’s involvement in Japan’s whaling spans 70 years. Under its previous name of Taiyo Fishery Company, Maruha’s 40 year Antarctic and North Pacific whaling campaigns claimed the lives of over 165,000 great whales, including over 8,000 blue whales and 60,000 fin whales. Also, when whale populations crashed in the 1970s and official catch quotas were reduced, Taiyo Fishery Company was implicated in large scale international pirate whaling that deliberately targeted protected species.

Clare Perry said: “The donation of their shares to ‘public-interest’ companies could serve to put whaling even more under the control of the Japanese government. But if Maruha, Taiyo and the other shareholders listen to their global constituency and act to end Japan’s whaling, they will positively influence whale conservation for decades to come.”