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Japan Is Delaying Plan To Hunt Humpback Whales

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By ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times

Published: December 22, 2007

Japan, under pressure from the United States and Australia, is delaying plans to kill 50 humpback whales as part of its already contentious annual whale harvest in waters near Antarctica.

Australia's new government had threatened to shadow the Japanese whaling vessels with a patrol boat and aircraft. The United States, which currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the International Whaling Commission, the international body that governs whaling, pushed hard for a delay until the group's next meeting, in June.

Japan and most maritime countries are bound by a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling, but there are exceptions for whales killed for scientific research. For years, Japan has hunted growing numbers of a widening range of species, studying stomach contents and other aspects of the animals taken.

But many countries, environmental groups and biologists oppose the activity, saying the meat ends up sold in Japanese markets.

Most of the research, according to many marine biologists, can be done through nonlethal means.

Opposition intensified when Japan for the first time included the humpback on its planned harvest list along with minke and finback whales. Humpback whales, last commercially killed 40 years ago, are a marquee species in the billion-dollar-a-year whale-watching industry because of their dramatic leaps and songlike vocalizations.

Takumi Fukuda, the fisheries attache at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, said Japan appreciated the American effort to "reduce tension" among countries bound by the whaling pact.

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