The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 17 | Issue 4 | Number 4 | Article ID 5251 | Feb 15, 2019

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After Withdrawal from the IWC: The Future of JapaneseWhaling

Fynn Holm

Summary: In December 2018, the Japanesegovernment announced that it was withdrawingfrom the International Whaling Commissionand would resume commercial whaling in July2019. This paper revisits four coastalcommunities that still conduct coastal whalingto see how these communities have developedduring the whaling moratorium and whatprospects and challenges they face whencommercial whaling is resumed.

Keywords: Japanese whaling, whalingmorator ium, Internat ional Whal ingCommission, whaling town, Institute ofCetacean Research

Introduction

On December 26, 2018, following a cabinetmeeting, the Japanese government confirmedwhat had been rumored for days: Japan wouldwithdraw from the International WhalingCommission (IWC) and resume commercialwhaling in July 2019. The Abe cabinet justifiedthe decision by arguing that the IWC had“refused to agree to take any tangible stepstowards reaching a common position thatwould ensure the sustainable management ofwhale resources” during the past 30 years.Even so, the government stressed that Japan“remains committed to internationalcooperation for the proper management ofmarine living resources. […] Japan willcontinue to contribute to the science-basedsustainable management of whale resources.”1

One surprising consequence of Japan’s IWCwithdrawal was that it would also be ceasing itscontroversial Antarctic scientific whalingprogram that had been criticized by anti-whaling non-government organizations (NGOs).Instead, all future commercial whalingoperations will be conducted inside Japan’sExclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This step maycome as a surprise to many Western observersas political scientists have almost exclusivelyfocused on Japan’s controversial whalingprogram to explain why Japan would not giveup whaling.2

Less well known, however, is that a handful ofJapanese coastal communities have continuedcoastal whaling during the past 30 yearsdespite the IWC moratorium.3 To understandthe rationale of Japan not only withdrawingfrom the IWC but also Antarctic whaling, Ia rgue tha t we have to cons ider thedevelopment of these so-called “whalingtowns.” Having conducted fieldwork in thesecommunities since 2015, I had the opportunityto travel to three of these communities shortlyafter the IWC withdrawal announcement andspeak with several stakeholders. In this paper, Itherefore revisit the "whaling towns" anddiscuss how the resumption of commercialwhaling has been received by the locals.

Due to the controversial nature of the topic, Iwithhold the names of my informants.Furthermore, I will not take a stance for oragainst whaling but rather let the voices of theinvolved stakeholders be heard. My researchshows that despite having lobbied for threedecades towards this goal, many locals werecomplete ly taken by surpr ise by the

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government’s decision. While supporting theIWC withdrawal in interviews with theJapanese media, privately, many stakeholdersare worried that the industry has become toosmall to be revitalized.

Towards the IWC Moratorium

Traditional whaling in the Meiji period.Private collection of the author.

The history of Japanese coastal whaling extendsback at least 400 years. During the earlymodern period, net-whaling became a middle-s ized proto- industry in some f ishingcommunities in western Japan, with the mostsuccessful whaling bases in northern Kyushu,southern Shikoku, and on the Kii peninsulaaround the town of Taiji. In the second half ofthe 19th century, the targeted whale stocksshowed signs of exhaustion due to coastal over-fishing and the whaling activities of Americanand Britain whalers off the Japanese coast.4

Japanese whaling was eventually reformedafter the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, whennew hunting techniques and motorized vesselsallowed the harvest of a larger range of whalespecies. Starting in the 1930s, Japanesewhaling f leets joined their European

counterparts in the Antarctic ocean, however,these activities ceased during the SecondWorld War, which allowed whale stocks torecover temporally. After the war, a group ofwhaling nations founded the InternationalWhaling Commission (IWC) in 1946 to assureconservation of the remaining whale stocks toallow resumption of whaling. Japan resumed itsAntarctic whaling expeditions after the SecondWorld War to secure whale meat for itsstarving population and eventually joined theIWC in 1951.

During the 1960s, the IWC failed to live up toits promise to assure the recovery of whalestocks and more whales than ever were killed.Environmental groups in the United States andother Western countries began to lobby for acomplete ban on whaling, arguing that whalestocks would be exterminated if this did nothappen. The US gave up its own whalingprogram in 1971 and at the United Nationsconference on the human environment inStockholm the following year, a 10-yearwhaling moratorium was ratified to the horrorof the Japanese delegation.

In 1982, the IWC, which comprised mainly ex-whaling nations and new member nations thathad never hunted whales before, followed suitand decided on a five-year commercial whalingmoratorium (a zero-catch quota) starting in1986. The moratorium was to be reviewed in1990 when additional data regarding the statusof the whale stocks would be available. Norwayfiled a formal objection and was therefore notbound by the moratorium and continuedwhaling. Japan also filed a formal objectionagainst this decision, but withdrew it in 1985due to pressure from the US and endedcommercial whaling at the end of 1987.5

Initially, the Japanese delegation worked underthe assumption that the moratorium would belifted in 1990. In 1991, however, the IWCassembly turned down a proposal for a newmanagement procedure and Iceland left the

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organization in protest. The Japanesegovernment also considered resigning from theIWC, but fearing for its internationalreputation, hesitated to go this far. At the sametime, Japan wanted to preserve its remainingwhaling industry so that it could restartcommercial whaling as soon as the moratoriumwas lifted.

Before the moratorium, the Japanese whalingindustry had consisted of three interwovenindustries. The first was pelagic whaling in theAntarctic ocean, which was conducted with awhaling fleet consisting of several catcherboats and a factory ship to flense the whalesonboard. The second was large-type coastalwhaling (LTCW), which hunted largercetaceans with whaling vessels larger than 50tons. Finally, small-type coastal whaling(STCW) specialized in hunting smaller whalesnear the Japanese coast.

In 1987, Japan made use of Article VIII of theInternational Whaling Convention, which allowsprotected whale species to be hunted forscientific purposes and transformed its formerpelagic fleet into a scientific whaling operation.A newly founded company called KyōdōSenpaku conducted research expeditions in thename of the Institute of Cetacean Research(ICR), a semi-private institution connected tothe Fishery Agency.

Kyōdō Senpaku employs 200 people and ownsthree catcher boats and one factory ship. It wascontracted for two scientific research projects:one in the Antarctic Ocean (JARPA) and asmaller one in the North Pacific (JARPN).6 Theofficial goal of these scientific missions was toassess the status of the whale stock to providedata that would lead to the moratorium beingrevoked. In accordance with the rules of theIWC, the meat of the captured whales wasfrozen and sold in Japan. Nevertheless, somemembers of the IWC and anti-whaling NGOsclaimed that because the whale meat was sold,these programs were in fact commercial

whaling disguised under a different name.7

While pelagic whaling was successfullytransformed into a scientific whaling program,LTCW was dismantled in 1987 due tooverhunting and poor demand for whaleproducts, and the large fishing companiesinvolved in this type of whaling were financiallycompensated by the Japanese government.STCW, however, is traditionally operated byresidents of coastal communities who huntwhales for local consumption. Before themoratorium, they hunted around 300 commonminke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)each year, as well as a small number of Baird’sbeaked whales (Berardius bairdii) and short-f inned p i lo t whales (Globiocephalamacrorhynchus). None of these species wereconsidered biologically endangered.

As the IWC had been founded to manage thewhale stock of large cetaceans, the small-sizedBaird’s beaked whales and pilot whales wereboth outside of the IWC’s self-declaredjurisdiction and therefore not covered by themoratorium. The hunt of these species is at thediscretion of national governments. Minkewhales, however, are a species of baleenwhales and are protected by the moratorium.For STCW operators, minke whales havealways been their main target as the raw meatwas especially valued. After the moratorium,they continued to hunt a small number of thenon-protected whale species and have sincelobbied the IWC to legally resume minkewhaling.

Their first attempt was at the 38th annual IWCmeeting in 1986, when the Japanese delegationargued that STCW resembled aboriginalsubsistence whaling, which is exempt from themoratorium. Prior to the 1988 IWC meeting, aninternational group of social scientists led bythe anthropologist Milton Freeman conductedfieldwork in these communities to underscorethe Japanese claim. In the following years, thesocial scientists presented their work at the

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IWC meetings and argued that the IWCmoratorium caused social and economichardship in these “whaling towns.”

In their final report (henceforth referred to asthe “Freeman report”), they concluded that“STCW shares certain characteristics withsome forms of commercial whaling […] but alsopossesses several attributes in common witha b o r i g i n a l s u b s i s t e n c e w h a l i n g[…].”8 Therefore, STCW should be considered adistinct category of whaling and like aboriginalwhaling, should not fall under the IWCmoratorium. Based on this argument, theJapanese delegation repeatedly asked the IWCplenary session for an emergency quota ofm i n k e w h a l e s t o r e d u c e t h e S T C Wcommunities’ hardship, but they wereconsistently denied.8

Revisiting the “Whaling Towns”

Coastal communities in Japan wherecoastal whaling is currently conducted.

One legacy of the discussions regarding theSTCW communities at the IWC was thepopularization of the term “whaling town.” TheFreeman report identif ied four STCWcommunities that possessed a unique “whalingculture,” defined as “the shared knowledge ofwhaling transmitted across generations.”10 Thefour communities in question were Taiji inWakayama, Wadaura in Chiba, Ayukawa inMiyagi, and Abashiri in Hokkaido. In theFreeman report, the STCW communities wereindiscriminately called “whaling towns” and“whaling communities,” translated from theJapanese “kujira no machi”.

Three of these communities still make activeuse of the term “whaling town” to attracttourists and to generate symbolic capital inJapanese politics. As the towns no longer haveenough whalers to conduct coastal whalingindependently, close ties between the STCWoperators have formed and persisted.Currently, around 40 sailors and land crew atthe whaling stations are working as coastalwhalers. Considering the small size of theindustry and the overall negligible demand inwhale meat, one is left to wonder why theJapanese government would fight the issue sovigorously given the cost in internationalreputation.

In order to understand the decision of theJapanese government to not only withdrawfrom the IWC but also give up Antarcticwhaling in exchange for coastal commercialwhaling, the author revisited these whale towns30 years after the Freeman report. How havethese communities developed under the IWCmoratorium and how have the locals reactedtowards the news of the resumption ofcommercial whaling in the summer of 2019?

Taiji: The Legacy of the Cove

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The Taiji Whale Museum (photo by theauthor).

To say that Japanese whaling has beencontroversial during the past three decadeswould be an understatement, but how haveinternational and domestic anti-whalingmovements played into the recent decision ofthe Japanese government to withdraw from theIWC? To answer this question, let us start withTaiji, the only whaling community widelyknown outside of Japan. Overlooking thepicturesque Kii peninsula coastline, Taiji isperfectly located to watch migrating whalesswimming along the Japanese coast. Its whalinghistory reaches as far back as 1606, when thefirst whaling group was established to huntright whales (Eubalaena japonica).

In 1675, whalers from Taiji developed a newwhaling technique that allowed them to trapwhales between the coast and large open seanets and capture them effectively. Thistechnique was so successful that it spread tomost whaling bases in western Japan. At thebeginning of the 19 th century, over 1,000whalers were working simultaneously in Taiji.Overhunting and a tragic accident in 1878,when over 100 whalers were lost during astorm, brought an end of the large-scale netwhaling activities, however.

Afterwards, Taiji whalers conducted mainlysmall-scale pilot whale hunting, which theycontinued throughout the 20th century. After

1906, many Taiji whalers went to the newwhaling bases in northern Japan or worked onthe pelagic whaling fleet in the AntarcticOcean. In 1988, only two STCW whaling boatsout of 33 remained (one of them was stationedin Ayukawa). In 2018, one boat and a crew ofsix whalers were still operating.

Since the 1960s, the town has tried to attracttourists with its whaling culture and hasopened a whaling museum and many otherassociated attractions. In addition to pilotwhaling, Taiji has also conducted dolphin huntdrives since 1969. Pilot whaling and dolphindrives are not officially regarded as STCW andare therefore under the jurisdiction ofWakayama Prefecture rather than the Japanesegovernment. Since the early 1990s, Westernenvironmental NGOs have heavily criticized theJapanese scientific whaling expeditions in theAntarctic and Japanese delegates at the IWChave been physically attacked. Similarly, theanti-whaling organization Sea Shepherd startedto obstruct whaling operations in the AntarcticOcean. Between 2008 and 2015, the American“Animal Planet” TV channel even produced adocumentary series called “whale wars” thatwas filmed from the perspective of SeaShepherd.11

For a long time, the Japanese coastal whalerswere not directly involved in this conflict. Thischanged in 2009 when the Americandocumentary “The Cove” featured the Taijidolphin hunt drive in an extremely criticalmanner.12 After the release of the movie,dozens of Western activists traveled each yearto Taiji to demand the dolphin hunts be stoppedand also criticized the whaling culture of Taijias a whole. The movie brought the controversyin the faraway Antarctic Ocean and IWCmeetings directly to Japan’s mainland and putthe formerly unknown “whaling towns” at thecenter of the media’s attention. Ishii Atsushihas argued in 2011 that many Japanese citizenswere not “pro-whaling” but rather “anti-anti-whaling” because of the Western criticism that

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was perceived by many Japanese as unfair.13

Local politicians like long term mayor SangenKazutaka (f irst elected in 2004) havesuccessfully capitalized on this sentiment andmade Taiji a symbol against foreign pressure.Mayor Sangen has, for example, prevented thefusion of Taiji with neighboring towns byarguing that this is the only way its uniquewhaling culture can be protected. This hasmade Taiji the smallest municipality inWakayama Prefecture. His position has alsoallowed him to establish contacts with thehighest ranks of the Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) of Japan and even receive an audiencewith the Emperor.

For many of the inhabitants of Taiji, however,the price of becoming a national symbol hasbeen high. During my fieldwork in Taiji in 2015,locals remarked that they were tired ofconstant ly be ing on guard and thatshopkeepers were no longer allowed to giveinterviews to foreigners. One resident fearedthat one day a fanatic from one of the opposingfactions might resort to violence and endangerthe well-being of his children. During my stay, Iwas constantly with a Japanese guide, but oneevening I walked from the Taiji Whale Museumto my hotel alone, crossing the larger of thetwo coves featured in the documentary. A“concerned citizen” must have seen me as soonafter this, the police arrived at my hotel lookingfor “a suspicious foreigner.” This demonstratedhow tense the atmosphere in Taiji was. In thelast two years, dolphin hunting has almostcompletely stopped and the protests have alsomostly disappeared.

After ten stressful years, Taiji was finallybecoming quiet again, but then on December26, 2018, the Japanese government officiallyannounced that Japan would be withdrawingfrom the IWC. Shortly after the announcement,the ruling LDP organized a get-together for theinvolved congressmen in the LDP headquartercafeteria and served deep-fried whale meat.

Among the congressmen was Taiji’s mayor,Sangen. At a press conference, the mayorpersonally thanked LDP Secretary GeneralNikai Toshihiro for his support: “I’m gratefulfrom the depth of my heart. To protect thefishermen, secretary Nikai hasn't deviated onebit from his path. For us, he is like a God."14

It is well-known that Secretary Nikai, whorepresents Wakayama Prefecture’s thirddistrict in the Lower House of the Japaneseparliament, was not only a close friend ofmayor Sangen but had also made it his lifeworkto resume commercial whaling.15 Nikai had, forexample, been the driving force in makingwhale meat a regular menu item in the LDPcafeteria after Japan lost its whaling casebefore the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in2014.16

The reaction of the people of Taiji to theresumption of commercial whaling has beenless enthusiastic, however. While manyresidents welcome the policy change, someworry about the ability of Taiji to resume large-scale whaling as only six whalers remain in thetown. A former employee of the Taiji WhaleMuseum remarked: “I don’t think thatcommercial whaling will promote regionaldevelopment. Can we really maintain thisindustry as long as there is no demand?”17 Also,after ten years of protests in the town, manylocals are exhausted and do not wish to reignitethe debate.18

Wadaura: Into a New Era of CommercialWhaling

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Blue whale skeleton in Wadaura (photo bythe author).

Taiji highlights how regional politics andculture have played a crucial role in resumingcommercial whaling, but why did thegovernment end whaling operations in theAntarctic Ocean and what does this changemean for current coastal whaling operations?To find the answers to these questions, let ustravel to the Kanto region and the “whalingtown” of Wadaura.

Since the 1650s, whalers have hunted Baird’sbeaked whales in the southern part of theChiba peninsula, which encircles the easternhalf of Edo/Tokyo Bay. Although the mainexport commodity to Edo was whale oil (firstused for illumination and then later also as aninsecticide), whale meat was not a popularexport. Instead, the meat was eaten locally andbecame part of the local cuisine.

In the 20th century, the whaling base movedseveral times, eventually moving out of the nowbusy Tokyo Bay to Wadaura on the Pacific sideof the peninsula. Despite its geographicalproximity to the capital, it takes over threehours using local trains or buses to reach thecommunity from downtown Tokyo. Its secludedposition has so far prevented the town frombeing swallowed by the ever-expanding TokyoMoloch, but the town struggles with the sameproblems as many other Japanese peripheralregions: depopulation, deindustrialization, and

outdated infrastructure.

In 2006, Wadaura merged with six otherneighboring towns to form Minami Bōsō city.To preserve the community’s distinct identity,locals have recently rediscovered andreinvented their “whaling town” brand. Whenreaching Wadaura by train, visitors are firstgreeted by the skeleton of a blue whale, eventhough blue whales have never been hunted inthe region. Almost all restaurants advertisewhale meat and the most eye-catching is “michino eki wao," which not only serves sevendifferent whale dishes but also sells a largevariety of whale-related products.19

Tourists are still scarce in Wadaura, however. Afew dedicated whale fans occasionally drop byduring the summer months to witness a nowrare sight in Japan: the flensing of a whale. Thesmall whaling station at the harbor of Wadaurabelongs to Gaibō Hogei, the only remainingwhaling company in the town. Gaibō Hogeiowns a second station in Ayukawa and twowhaling ships and has a crew of around 20people. Since the moratorium came into effectin 1988, the company has ceased minkewhaling and focused instead on the traditionalBaird’s beaked whales, killing around 26 a yearin Wadaura. The second crew comes down fromAyukawa to help with the hunt and vice versa.Even though prices for whale meat haveincreased a little since the moratorium, 26whales are not enough for the whalers to turn asignificant profit.

Until 1999, the ICR contracted the whalingcompany Kyōdō Senpaku not only for theAntarctic whaling expeditions but also for thehunting of 100 minke whales in the NorthPacific scientific whaling program (JARPN).When the ICR revised the North Pacificprogram in 2002 under JARPNII, they expandedthe contract with Kyōdō Senpaku to anadditional 100 sei whales (Balaenopteraborealis), 50 Bryde’s whales (Balaenopterabrydei), and 10 sperm whales (Physeter

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macrocephalus). They also added another 100minke whales to the hunt near the Japanesecoast and hired the crews and ships of the four“whaling towns’” STCW companies.

As the STCW operators possessed no factoryships on which the whales could be processedon the open sea, the captured whales werebrought to the land whaling stations inAyukawa and Kushiro for flensing. Theinvolvement of the STCW whalers in thescientific whaling program provided thestruggling industry with more work for thesailing and flensing teams and also allowedthem to hunt 100 minke whales again eachseason, providing the whaling communitieswith fresh minke meat instead of frozen. Theexpansion of JARPNII was a direct consequenceof the IWC’s refusal to allow an emergencyquota of minke whales for the STCWcommunities. The scientific coastal whalingprogram kept the STCW above water for thenext few years, but it was not universallypopular among the whalers.

In an interview in January 2019, the CEO ofGaibō Hogei explained to me that for him, thetransit ion from scienti f ic whaling tocommercial whaling was the most importantaspect of the recent government decision. Hestressed that scientific research was importantand that he was more than willing to help theresearch, but that at heart, he was the owner ofa company and wanted first and foremost tohunt whales and sell fresh whale meat.Scientific whaling has never been more than atemporary solution to keep the STCWcompanies alive.

The hunting plans of the ICR have not alwaysmatched the interests of the coastal whalingcrews. In 2014, the Japanese government lost alawsuit against Australia when the ICJ ruledthat the Japanese whaling expedition in theAntarctic ocean did not fully fulfill therequirements of “scientific whaling” as definedby the IWC.20 In response, the Japanese

government postponed the Antarctic expeditionfor 2014, only to resume it one year later with arevised scientific plan that took the criticism bythe ICJ into consideration.

Another consequence was that the ICR alsorevised JARPNII even though no lawsuit hadbeen made against this program. From 2017onwards, the new plan (NEWREP-NP) reducedthe North Pacific whaling conducted by KyōdōSenpaku to 43 minke whales and 134 seiwhales per season. Changes were also made tothe scientific coastal whaling conducted by theSTCW operators. Although the number ofminke whales was lowered to eighty, additionalwhaling stations were built in Abashiri andHachinohe. The duration of the hunting seasonfor scientific whaling was also extended, whichinterfered with the regular STCW, for example,Gaibō Hogei’s Baird’s beaked whale hunting.Therefore, the return to commercial whalingwould allow Gaibō Hogei once more to have itsown hunting schedule, without beingdependent on the ICR’s scientific whalingprogram. The CEO of Gaibō Hogei expects thatthe government will keep doing scientificresearch on coastal whaling vessels toguarantee a sustainable use of the whalestocks, but now the scientists will be guests onhis boats and working according to hisschedule.

Despite having plans to expand to minkewhales, Gaibō Hogei is currently not hiring newpeople as the CEO expects that the governmentwill not increase the whale catch. Small quotasfor sei whales and Bryde’s whale might be set,however. He does not expect STCW to expandsignif icantly after the resumption ofcommercial whaling, but it remains possiblethat new players will enter the game. KyōdōSenpaku, having lost their contracts with theICR and no longer being able to hunt in theAntarctic ocean might restart LTCW inside theJapanese EEZ with their remaining factoryship. Also, new places on the Sea of Japan coastmight enter the whaling business, giving the

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existing whaling companies additionalcompetition.

I asked the whaler, why it took the Japanesegovernment 30 years to withdraw from the IWCand restart commercial whaling. He remarkedthat this option has always been on the tablebut Japan has historically been very consciousof its public image and strongly committed tointernational rules. In the past two years,however, the US and some European countrieshave shown an increased willingness to leaveinternational organizations when they did notoperate in their countries’ interests. In thisrespect, Japan was just following the globaltrend.

I received a similar answer when I interviewedone of the scientists working with the ICR.According to him, the end of the controversialAntarctic whaling program was a way tominimize the damage to Japan’s reputationwhen withdrawing from the IWC by giving theanti-whaling nations what they wanted mostwithout giving up whaling completely. From asustainability standpoint, he explained that thisis somewhat regrettable as the minke whalestocks in the Antarctic Ocean are probablymore stable than those in the North Pacific.The scientist was also aware that manyWestern observers will now look very closely atthe new coastal commercial whal ingoperations, therefore, it is extremely importantthat the scientific research continues toguarantee a sustainable use of whale stocks:“The whole world is looking at us. We cannotscrew this up.”

Ayukawa: The Whales and the Tsunami

Ayukawa after the Tsunami (photo by theauthor).

My interview with Gaibō Hogei showed thatalthough the resumption of commercial whalinghad been anticipated by whalers for over 30years, it has raised many questions about thefuture of coastal whaling. To find out what thechallenges are, I traveled to the two remaining“whaling towns” in December 2018 andJanuary 2019 and spoke with local folklorists,ex-whalers, whale meat vendors, andguesthouse owners. In the third “whaling town”of Ayukawa, people were especially concernedabout the future of coastal whaling as theylinked the existence of their town with thissmall industry. To understand how thishappened, we must rewind the clock eightyears.

On March 11, 2011, Ayukawa vanished.Situated near the peak of the secluded Oshikapeninsula in Miyagi Prefecture, Ayukawa washit by the 14-meter-high tsunami that woulddevastate a large part of northern Japan andcause the Fukushima accident. Almost 70% ofthe houses were washed away and everystructure in the former town center wasannihilated. Thanks to the experience of thelocals with tsunamis, the town of 1,400inhabitants only had to mourn 23 victims. Withthe loss of infrastructure, however, mostinhabitants had to resettle in temporaryhousing and many eventually moved away.

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Like Taiji and Wadaura, Ayukawa had identifiedas a “whaling town,” but in only half an hour,the town lost its whaling ships, the whalingstation, and even the local whale museum.Eight years later, most of the town’s houseshave still not been reconstructed. Thegroundwork for a new harbor center with anew whale museum has barely been started.Nevertheless, only one year after the tsunami,the whaling station of the company AyukawaHogei had been rebuilt and scientific andcoastal whaling resumed. A year later, thesurviving inhabitants resurrected the localwhaling festival and have held it every year.Locals have begun to invent new whale meatrecipes and to sell the meat locally and via theinternet. The message is clear: “Ayukawa, as awhaling town, can only be rebuilt and we willlive together with the whales.”21 I have arguedelsewhere that despite its marginal economicstatus, many inhabitants of Ayukawa haveinextricably linked the continued existence andrebuilding of the town with the coastal whalingoperation.22

The whaling history of Ayukawa began over100 years ago when the first industrial whalingstation was built in 1906. Afterwards, the townbecame the single most important whaling basein all of Japan and its population grew to 3,700in the 1950s. The whaling industry began todecline due to a lack of demand for whaleproducts and overhunting, however, and by1988, the town's population had shrunk to2,200. In 2008, two former whaling companiesmerged with the new company Ayukawa Hogei,which together with Gaibō Hogei could hunt upto 26 Baird’s beaked whales in coastal waters.Under JARPNII, Ayukawa became a newwhaling ground for scientific coastal whalingand up to 60 minke whales were flensed eachyear at the whaling station of Ayukawa Hogei,accounting for about 40% of the company’sincome.

After the destruction of the whaling station in2011, the spring expedition was moved from

Ayukawa to Kushiro. Ayukawa Hogei hoped toreceive emergency money from the governmentto rebuild its whaling station as quickly aspossible, so they would not lose access to thescientific coastal whaling operation. However,journalists discovered that the 2.28 billion yenfrom Tōhoku Reconstruction Funds reservedfor whaling was not intended to help the STCWwhalers in Ayukawa, but rather to pay forprotective measures against anti-whalinggroups in the Antarctic Ocean. One member ofthe House of Representatives even suggestedthat the true purpose of the money was to paythe massive debt that the ICR had accumulatedover the years due to its Antarctic whalingexpeditions.23

Having lost precious time because of thispolitical scandal, Ayukawa Hogei decided torebuild the whaling station with its own moneyand in 2012, the scientific coastal whalingoperation was once again conducted inAyukawa. Since 2013, however, the whalershave struggled to find enough minke whales inthe sea off Ayukawa to fulfill the governmentset quota. To make matters worse, most of thecaptured minke whales turned out to besexually immature, indicating that the hunt wasnot sustainable. This was one reason why theICR decided to open two new whaling groundsin Hachinohe and Abashiri in 2017 whenintroducing the new scientific whaling programNEWREP-NP. This change meant that fewerminke whales were harvested and flensed inAyukawa and that like Gaibō Hogei in Wadaura,the new scientific coastal whaling schedule inHachinohe interfered with Baird’s beakedwhale hunting in Ayukawa.

This was the situation when the news of theIWC withdrawal reached Ayukawa. The locals Ispoke with were overwhelmingly skepticalabout the future of whaling and the community.For eight years, the community had struggledto regain its footing after the tsunami and keepthe small whaling industry alive. Many localshad helped to organize the yearly whale festival

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to attract tourists, participated in planning thenew harbor area, and founded start-ups sellingfresh whale meat locally and online. All thiswork was now potentially threatened. Thelocals especially feared that because Ayukawais situated in a peripheral region that is hard toreach and had recently lost most of itsinfrastructure and working population due tothe tsunami, it would be too inconvenient aplace to rebuild viable commercial whaling.

In the past, its remote location had notmattered as the sea around Ayukawa had beenfull of whales, but recent scientific coastalwhaling expeditions have shown that this is nolonger the case. Also, the current whalingstation can only process whales up to eightmeters long and is therefore too small shouldcommercial whaling allow the hunt of largerwhales. For the locals, it therefore seems likelythat commercial whaling will move to newports nearer to big cities. This will also meanthat fresh whale meat will become more widelyavailable and that the few remaining whalemeat enthusiasts will have one reason less totravel to the faraway Ayukawa to purchasefresh whale meat. While the locals had hopedfor 30 years that commercial whaling would beresumed, now that it is about to happen, manyhave realized that Ayukawa does no longerprovide the conditions necessary for asuccessful commercial whaling industry.

Abashiri: From Whalers to Whale Watchers

Fried whale meat dish in Kushiro (photo bythe author).

Our visit to the last “whaling town” brings us tothe i cy coas t o f the Okhotsk Sea innortheastern Hokkaido. In the summer, severalwhale species travel thousands of miles alongthe Japanese Pacific coast to reach thesewaters and feed on plankton and small fish.Long before the first Japanese or even Ainureached this northern region, the indigenousOkhotsk people hunted whales here. Visitors toAbashiri, a fishing city of around 35,000inhabitants, come mostly to sightsee at theprison museum, which preserves the originalbuildings of Japan’s most infamous prison fromthe Meiji period, or watch the drift ice. Unlikethe other whaling communities, walkingthrough the city streets gives little indicationthat this city has a deeper connection towhales: there are no restaurants praising whalemeat and no manholes with whale motifs. Onlywhen reaching the harbor do you find whaleposters, but these whales are not for eating.Instead, these posters are for the newesttourist attraction: whale watching.

Starting in 1988, whale watching has becomean important tourist industry in over 30 coastalcommunities in Japan. In 2008, the number ofwhale watchers rose to 190,000 and 104operators generated revenue of almost US$23million.24 Interestingly, of the four “whalingtowns,” only Abashiri has so far engaged inwhale watching. Like Ayukawa, Abashiri’s

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industrial whaling history began in the 20th

century. After the Second World War, Abashiribecame an important whaling base forproviding whale meat to the starving Japanesepopulation and afterwards, the town’s whalerscarried out STCW in the coastal waters.

The IWC moratorium in 1988 caused a schismamong the remaining whalers, with most givingup the profession and friendships breakingdown. The whalers who were put out ofbusiness in 1988 either retired or switched tofishing or dolphin hunting. Around ten yearsago, one of these ex-whalers purchased a newship to participate in whale watching, whichwas becoming popular in Abashiri around thistime. With his knowledge of whales andespecially his ability to spot the animals in thewater, he quickly became a successful whalewatcher.

Meanwhile, two small whaling companiesremained and received permission from thegovernment to hunt one Baird’s beaked whaleeach per year (later this was doubled to a totalof four whales per year). Without a crew oreven whaling vessels, these two whalingcompanies were dependent on the whalersfrom Taiji and Ayukawa and the capturedwhales were brought onto land using thecompanies’ winches and a pier in the harbor.The whales were flensed side-by-side under theopen sky as the former whaling station nolonger existed. Both companies kept operatingprimarily to preserve the local whalingtradition and one recently purchased a smallwhaling vessel. Without a full crew, however, itis still dependent on whalers from other towns.

The situation in Abashiri changed in 2017 whenthe new scientific whaling program NEWREP-NP expanded its whaling operations toAbashiri. The ICR built a new whaling stationand in 2017, 47 minke whales were broughtonto land and flensed in Abashiri with the helpof whalers from other whaling communities.Not many people in Abashiri still identify with

the whaling industry, however, and the news ofthe IWC withdrawal has been received withoutgreat emotion. One ex-whaler I interviewedremarked that he does not see how whaling canbe resumed in Abashiri without equipment,boats, or even young people willing to do thejob. Even the new whaling station from the ICRis of little help as it is based on the other sideof the town and has no direct access to the sea.Instead, the whales must be moved onto land atthe pier where Baird's beaked whales are alsoflensed and then transported on trucks throughthe city. This can be done with the relativelysmall minke whales, but it is not practical withlarger whale species.

Furthermore, thanks to the new whale-watching industry, the locals have a relativelygood idea of the current whale stock situationand fear that species like fin whales will notlast long if hunted again for commercialwhaling.25 Of the four whaling communities,Abashiri certainly has the weakest connectionto whaling. The social scientists involved in theFreeman report did not even visit Abashiri toconduct fieldwork, but included the townnevertheless. One inhabitant explained: “Wewere only called a “whaling town” because wehad a whaling station at that time [in 1988].But we haven’t really done anything related towhale tourism. There is no longer a connectionbetween whales and the inhabitants ofAbashiri, the only thing we have is the [whalewatching] cruiser.” This view was confirmed byanother local who added: “There is not really arelationship between the lives of humans andthe whales. Sometimes we had eaten whalesashimi, but this has completely disappeared inthe last ten years.”

Does this mean that the “whaling culture” inHokkaido has been extinguished? After visitingAbashiri, I took the train south to the port cityof Kushiro in southeastern Hokkaido. The cityis mentioned in the Freeman report, but thesocial scientists did not label it a “whalingtown” as there were no active whalers

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operating and living in the city in 1988.Interestingly, however, Kushiro is described asa “new whal ing town” on the town’swebsite.26 Indeed, in downtown Kushiro, thereare countless restaurants advertising freshwhale meat outside their stores.

Kushiro has a very brief whaling history, but inApril 2000, Kyōdō Senpaku started to visit theport to deliver frozen whale meat. This eventwas accompanied by many pro-whaling eventsand eventually led to the creation of a “whalingfestival” that is now held every year.27 Also,after 2002, Kushiro became one of the twoplaces where the STCW companies flensed theminke whales caught for the ICR. In Kushiro, Ihad the opportunity to speak with the owner ofa local izakaya, who not only sold whale meatdishes in his restaurant but was one of thefounding members of the "Kushiro WhaleCouncil" (kushiro kujira kyōgikai).28 Thisorganization not only organizes the whalingfestival and promotes the consumption of whalemeat, but also hosted the “Summit of JapaneseTraditional Whaling Communities” (zenkokukujira fo-ramu) in 2009.

The owner of the izakaya was very enthusiasticabout Japan’s withdrawal from the IWC andexpects that in the future, his restaurant will beable to offer many more whale species tocustomers. Even without active whalers, it is noquestion for him that Kushiro is a real "whalingtown." According to him, the biggest challengeis to convince older people that whale meatnowadays tastes much better than in the olddays as only the best parts of the meat are soldand prepared at the restaurant. In recent years,more restaurants have begun to sell whalemeat, experimenting with new recipes and onlyusing high-quality parts. Whale meat may stillnot be widely eaten, but because of its rarityand controversial nature, it has become adelicacy for food enthusiasts. This developmenthas been promoted by the "Kushiro WhaleCouncil" and similar associations have formedin other coastal cities during the past 20 years.

Like Kushiro, coastal communities that hadgiven up whaling long before the IWCmoratorium, such as Hakodate, Shimonoseki,Nagato, Nagasaki, and Ikitsukishima have sincebranded themselves as “new whaling towns.”When visiting these towns during my fieldwork,I discovered that because there are no activewhalers left in these communities, they have anespecially strong nostalgic view of the coastalwhaling industry, without seeing the everydayproblems STCW operators face. Indeed, Ibelieve that some of them may be likelycandidates for establishing their owncommercial whaling companies after theresumption of commercial whaling.

Conclusion

Having revisited the four whaling communities,what are our conclusions? We have seen thatcoastal whaling has survived in thesecommunities for 30 years, mainly because ofthe close cooperation between the villagesbased on their shared identity as “whalingtowns” and because of government support inthe form of scientific coastal whaling programs.While many locals in the whaling communitieshave long hoped that commercial whalingwould someday resume, faced with the realityof the decision, their first response has beenunderwhelming. With only old equipmentavailable, no capital, and only 40 whalers stillactive, many of whom are already pastretirement age, it remains to be seen howsuccessful the industry can be without furthergovernment support.

The return to commercial whaling will allowcoastal whaling operators greater freedom, buta great expansion of the industry seemsunlikely as the catch quotas set by thegovernment wil l probably not changedrastically. The decision to withdraw from theIWC was mainly an opportunistic call by theJapanese government at a moment when theclimate in many Western nation-states was

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against upholding international agreements. Italso had the added benefit of getting rid ofAntarctic whaling, which not only swallowedmassive public subsidies, as the TōhokuReconstruction Funds scandal had shown, butalso incurred much Western criticism.

While STCW is smaller, its symbolic value ismuch higher as people in Japan are moreemotionally attached to these communitiesthan whaling operations in the far awayAntarctic Ocean. Nevertheless, the Japanesegovernment is still quite conscious of its publicimage and will set strict quotas to bolster itsclaim that sustainable whaling is possible. Newwhaling stations being built in new places isstill likely, however.

I t remains unclear whether the newcommercial whaling industry will increase thedemand for whale meat and other whaleproducts. In the past 30 years, the pro-whalingassociations have gone to great lengths toincrease the marketability of whale meat,pushing the concept of “whaling towns” evenoutside the original four communities.Meanwhile, three of these four communitieshave cultivated their whaling image. Althoughthe promotion of whale meat as a localspecialty has been partly successful,acceptance of the product across Japan is yet tooccur.

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Fynn Holm is a teaching and research assistant in Social Sciences of Japan at the Universityof Zurich, Switzerland. He is currently finishing his PhD titled “Hunting with the Gods of theSea: Anti-Whaling Movements in Northeast Japan, 1600-1912.” He can be reached atfynn.holm@uzh.ch.

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Notes1 See Statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary(https://www.mofa.go.jp/ecm/fsh/page4e_000969.html), Dec 26, 2018. 2 For examples, see Midori Kagawa-Fox, “Japan’s Whaling Triangle – The Power Behind theWhaling Policy (https://doi.org/10.1080/10371390903298078),” Japanese Studies 29, no. 3(2009): 401–14; Atsushi Ishii and Ayako Okubo, “An Alternative Explanation of Japan’sWhaling Diplomacy in the Post-Moratorium Era(https://doi.org/10.1080/13880290701229911),” Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy10, no. 1 (2007): 55–87; Keiko Hirata, “Beached Whales: Examining Japan’s Rejection of anInternational Norm (https://www.jstor.org/stable/30209488),” Social Science Japan Journal 7,no. 2 (2004): 177–97; Mike Danaher, “Why Japan Will Not Give up Whaling(https://doi.org/10.1080/13239100220141164),” Pacifica Review: Peace, Security & GlobalChange 14, no. 2 (2002): 105–20.3 David McNeill and Tomohiko Taniguchi, “A Solution to the Whaling Issue? Former MOFASpokesman Speaks Out (https://apjjf.org/-David-McNeill/3070/article.html),” The Asia-PacificJournal 7, no. 9 (2009).4 Jakobina K. Arch, Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early ModernJapan (Washington: University of Washington Press, 2018).5 Amy L. Catalinac and Gerald Chan, “Japan, the West, and the Whaling Issue: Understandingthe Japanese Side(https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/amycatalinac/files/japan_forum_whaling.pdf),” Japan Forum17, no. 1 (2005): 133–63; Michael Strausz, “Executives, Legislatures, and Whales: The Birth ofJapan’s Scientific Whaling Regime (https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcu007),” InternationalRelations of the Asia-Pacific 14, no. 3 (2014): 455–78.6 For more information on the several scientific whaling programs, visit the website(https://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.html) of the ICR.7 Robert L. Friedheim, “Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice: Explaining Japan’s Failure in theInternational Whaling Negotiations (https://doi.org/10.1080/00908329609546089),” OceanDevelopment & International Law 27, no. 4 (1996): 349–78.8 Tomoya Akimichi et al., Small-Type Coastal Whaling in Japan: Report of an InternationalWorkshop(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310610508_Small-type_Coastal_Whaling_in_Japan_Report_of_an_International_Workshop), ed. Milton M. R. Freeman (Boreal Institute forNorthern Studies, University of Alberta, 1988), 83.9 Masami Iwasaki-Goodman, “An Analysis of Social and Cultural Change in Ayukawa-Hama(Ayukawa Shore Community) (https://doi.org/10.7939/R3416T51C)” (PhD thesis, University ofAlberta, Department of Anthropology, 1994), 56–61.10 Akimichi et al., Small-Type Coastal Whaling in Japan, 75.11 Charlie Foley, “Whale Wars” (Animal Planet, 2008-2015).12 Louie Psihoyos, The Cove, Documentary (Lionsgate, 2009).13 Atsushi Ishii, Kaitai shinsho “hogei ronsō” (Tokyo: Shinhyōron, 2011).14 See Fnn Prime (https://www.fnn.jp/posts/00405880HDK), Dec 26, 2018.15 See Buzzap! (https://buzzap.jp/news/20181230-japan-whaling-nikai/), Dec 30, 2018.

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16 See Sankei News(https://www.sankei.com/premium/news/141220/prm1412200010-n1.html), Dec 20, 2014.17 See Mainichi Digital (https://mainichi.jp/articles/20181220/k00/00m/040/290000c), Dec 20,2018.18 See for example Yahoo News(https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20181226-00363496-agara-l30), Dec 26, 2018; LivedoorNews (http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/15793909/), Dec 26, 2018.19 For more information, see the website (http://wa-o.awa.jp/) of michi no eki wao.20 Jeffrey J. Smith, “Evolving to Conservation?: The International Court’s Decision in theAustralia/Japan Whaling Case (https://doi.org/10.1080/00908320.2014.957965),” OceanDevelopment & International Law 45, no. 4 (2014): 301–27.21 Mikio Ōshima and Seiji Ōsumi, “Ayukawa No Fukkō Ha Kujira Kara,” Ishinomakigaku, no. 3(2017): 30.22 Fynn Holm, “The Whales and the Tsunami: The reconstruction and reinvention of the"whale town" Ayukawa,” in Land, Natur, Nation. Japans Regionen zwischen Idylle, Verfall undRevitalisierung, ed. Ludgera Lewerich; Theresa Sieland and Timo Thelen (Düsseldorf:Düsseldorf University Press, 2019), in print.23 See The House of Representatives, Japan(http://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_kaigirokua.nsf/html/kaigirokua/025318020121023003.htm), Oct 23, 2012; Philip Brasor, “Scrutiny of Tohoku Reconstruction Funds Needed(http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/09/23/national/media-national/scrutiny-of-tohoku-reconstruction-funds-needed/),” The Japan Times Online, Sep 23, 2012.24 Paul A. Cunningham, Edward H. Huijbens, and Stephen L. Wearing, “From Whaling toWhale Watching: Examining Sustainability and Cultural Rhetoric(https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2011.632091),” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 20, no. 1(2012): 143–61.25 For a report on the whale sightings by the whale watchers, see Yoshikazu Uni et al.,“Sighting Records of Cetaceans and Sea Birds in the Southern Okhotsk Sea, off Abashiri,Hokkaido (http://shiretoko-museum.mydns.jp/_media/shuppan/kempo/3609s_uni-etal.pdf),”Bulletin of the Shiretoko Museum, no. 36 (2014): 29–40.26 See the website(https://www.city.kushiro.lg.jp/sangyou/suisan/kushiro_suisan/page00026.html) of the city ofKushiro.27 Jun Morikawa, Whaling in Japan : Power, Politics and Diplomacy (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2009), 69.28 See the website (http://www.suisan-kushiro.jp/kujira/index.html) of kushiro kujira kyōgikai.