As Whaling Meeting Opens, Distinguished Scientists Urge Japan to Suspend 'Scientific' Whale Hunt

5/20/2002

From: Jan Vertefeuille in Japan, 01-81-80-300-64614 or Kerry Zobor, 847-853-1384, kerry.zobor@wwfus.org; both of the World Wildlife Fund; Web site: http://www.worldwildlife.org

SHIMONOSEKI, Japan, May 20 -- On the opening day of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting here, 21 prominent scientists from around the world -- among them three Nobel Prize winners -- challenged the scientific credibility of Japan's "scientific" whaling program and called on the Japanese government to halt it. A letter from the scientists was delivered today to top officials in Tokyo, including the prime minister.

Although Japan's "scientific whaling" program has long been criticized within the whaling commission itself, Monday's letter is the first definitive scientific judgment from outside the IWC. The scientists criticized the country's whaling program, ostensibly done as scientific research, as failing to meet "minimum standards for credible science." The letter also ran as a full-page ad in the western edition of The New York Times today.

The open letter to the Japanese government was signed by marine biologists and distinguished scientists such as David Suzuki, Jared Diamond, Jane Lubchenco, Sylvia Earle, E.O. Wilson and Nobel laureates Sir Aaron Klug and Roger Guillemin.

"The letter serves as an independent critique of Japan's 'scientific whaling' program outside the IWC and it comes from world-recognized scientific authorities," said Richard Mott, vice president for international policy at World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the newspaper ad. "We are pleased to see so many luminaries in the science world defending science so forcefully."

Despite a global moratorium imposed by the IWC in 1986, Japan has continued to hunt whales, using a loophole in the moratorium that allows the killing of whales for scientific research. But Japan has never allowed outside experts to review its results. And the country distributes its whale quota among commercial whaling interests, which sell the whale meat to upscale stores and restaurants in Japan. "The commercial nature of Japan's whaling program conflicts with its scientific independence," the scientists' letter says. "Most of the data being gathered by Japan's 'scientific whaling' are obtainable by non-lethal means. Yet Japan's whale research program kills hundreds of whales each year in the absence of a compelling scientific need."

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