Most Australians love whales and abhor the idea of killing these magnificient creatures. In contrast there is a long tradition of killing and eating whales in Japan.
I am an Australian and I am interested in understanding the history and culture of whaling in Japan. I like challenging my beliefs and preconceptions and learning why and how different cultures harvest wildlife.
This is part 2 of ‘The Whale: A Fish in Japanese Eyes’ a series of readings from Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki:
“Some 4000 to 5500 years ago, in the earliest days of the Jomon Period, our ancestors were eating whale meat, as re-vealed by archaeological finds from around San Nai Maruyama, in Aomori Prefecture.
Large deposits of whale and dolphin bone have been discovered at these sites. In those days, there was no whaling as we know it today, rather the people made use of small whales that beached themselves, or drifted already dead to shore. Those whales were called yori kujira, or visiting whale, and were thought of as gifts from heaven.
There is considerable debate, depending on which period of our history we analyze, as to whether or not ancient Japanese people simply passively awaited yori kujira or went to sea to actively hunt whales. However, one thing is certain: Japanese have utilized whales and small cetaceans for food throughout our history, just as we have utilized all the sea’s resources such as seaweed, fish and shell-fish. However, even in the Jomon Period, there is evidence of some active whaling.
The remains of a Jomon Period village (from 4000 BC to 300 BC) unearthed in Noto Peninsula, in Ishikawa Prefecture, revealed a considerable deposit of whale and dolphin bone. It was found in such quantities as to indicate a high probability that the people of that region actively hunted whales and dolphins.”
To read Part 1, and the comments that followed, click here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer,
I am curious as to your use of the word “magnificent” to describe whales, and why you think they are so.
So there’s an uncertain probability that a minority group have a prior tradition of actively hunting whales. Mainstream Japanese society does not have a long, consistent or uninterrupted tradition of eating whale.
How many traditional Japanese whale hunters are involved in modern day Japanese whale hunting? Which traditional hunting methods are used? What of the traditional spiritual aspects of the hunt, if any, are they observed?
Those that want to avoid the persistent moralising may wish to read from the following;
http://luna.pos.to/whale/gen.html
http://luna.pos.to/whale/jwa_trad.html
There is something odd about discussing other people’s eating habits. Discussing my own is weird enough.
Why, just yesterday I bought three packages of frozen chicken to prepare for houseguests. The packages were labeled “Smart Chicken.” What avian intellectual pursuits were cut short by a Westernized lust for tasty protein?
I did not wonder about it long. The meal went well, and that is the ultimate point.
Schiller.
One of the hackneyed arguments against whaling is their considerable intelligence, as if proximity to human cognitive capability verges somehow upon cannabalism. Shouldn’t the same considerations apply to all species, or is the notion of chicken intelligence foul?
Hi Libby,
My only real experience of whales was when I lived in the town of Toliara (also sometimes written Tulear) in SW Madagascar for three years from 1985.
Roads were terrible and I was working as a field entomologist and needed to go back to particular places at regular intervals to check/collect particular insects.
I used to hire a canoe (complete with local fisherman) to travel across the mouth of the Onilahy River and down the west coast of Madagascar to revisit particular sites. And during these day long, or two day trips, we were sometimes in close proximately to these huge whales – at least they seemed huge to me. I was in awe and fear at the same time.
My oxford dictionary defines ‘magnificent’ as ‘spendid and imposing, beautiful, awe-inspiring’ – seems to fit.
Cetaceans can distinguish between whales and fish but the Japanese can’t?
Stone the crows,
And I am reminded of Henry Miller’s joke:
“How can you tell whether a whale is a mammal or a fish?” a teacher asks her third-grade class.
“Take a vote?” pipes up one of the pupils.
Link here http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000579.html
This sort of thing is irrelevant anyway. The only relevant question is: are the whales being hunted an endangered species? If the answer is no, then the Japanese have as much right to hunt them as anyone else has to fish for Tuna.
As someone has already said, Westerners telling Japanese (or anyone for that matter) that they can’t eat whales because it makes us uneasy is equivalent to India banning us from eating beef.
The ridiculous western fascination for whales leaves me pretty nonplussed. A man in Bremer Bay was charged last year by CALM for desecrating the body of a dead whale that washed up on the beach. It seems that some people think it to be a crime equivalent to grave robbing.
Whales are not people.
http://www.gravett.org/yobbo/?p=720
So why should we worry if they’re endangered?
Does it matter to our human happiness?
I guess Phil the situation is that there are people who are unhappy because whales may be endangered and are prepared to outlay resources so that their condition does not worsen.. I don’t know why they are unhappy because there are fewer whales or no whales.
But then perhaps you can enlighten me as to why there are not many people worried about the eradication of another member of the the planet, smallpox?
Blair
There are other diseases that need more study, research, resources and resolution; the ISOM has prioritised the need for the following vaccines –
• cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine administered to 12 year olds,
• influenza virus vaccine administered to the general population (once per person every 5 years or one-fifth of the population per year),
• insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus therapeutic vaccine,
• multiple sclerosis therapeutic vaccine,
• rheumatoid arthritis therapeutic vaccine,
• Group B streptococcus vaccine to be well-incorporated into routine prenatal care and administered to women during first pregnancy and to high-risk adults (at age 65 years and to people less than age 65 years with serious, chronic health conditions), and
• Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine to be given to infants and to 65 year olds.
http://fermat.nap.edu/html/vacc21/
That’s because it’s a dangerous microbe that makes us ill and can kill us. This of course tends to make the individual affected or their family most unhappy.
Blair – let me widen the question for you – why worry that any species is endangered as long as it doesn’t affect us physically or the economy.
Past climatic and geological events have exterminated thousands and thousands of species in the past so who cares.
Dear Phil
I think you have answered your own question “why worry that any species is endangered as long as it doesn’t affect us physically or the economy?”
Answer: It is a ” dangerous microbe that makes us ill and can kill us”.
I will be honest I don’t particularly care whether “past climatic and geological events have exterminated thousands and thousands of species in the past”. My great, great grandfather was a sawmiller so doubt contributed to some species decline in SE Qld.
What concerns me is whether the benefits resulting from activities giving rise to environmental “bads” or more importantly the benefits from curbing the activities of those giving rise to environmental “bads” will outweigh the costs of curbing the activities.
That is the issue. What has gone has gone.
Blair
Posted by: Phil Done at April 3, 2006 03:52 PM
So what value do you put on a species ?
Surely Blair doesn’t just care about an equation? Particularly when it contains so many unknowns. ‘Goods’ & ‘bads’ from whose perspective, whose values get the highest weighting, over what time-scale, do we include indirect effects and factor in uncertainties (eg do whales play an important ecosystem role)? So difficult, should we just hold a vote? Whales aren’t national property, they defy boundaries. If we consider traditional cultural values and ways of life that differ from western 1st world ways (eg non-reductionist thinking) to be important, then the issue is more complex again. Distill that into an equation and then see if the public accepts the outcome.
Yobbo WHY does it matter if “the whales being hunted (are) an endangered species”? Assuming everyone agrees they are endangered, then so what? Other than whale-watching tourist dollars, why does it matter whether they go extinct or not?
Does it matter? There’s probably no truth to the research that suggests our evolutionary legacy requires a close association with nature for optimal physical, emotional and mental health, this is why many people feel a strong sense of stewardship. If the people with money desire to buy votes, harpoons, ships, refrigerated storage and whale meat then why should others protest? Let them hunt whales as much as they like, irrespective of near extinctions.
Thinksi: In the current scientific climate it probably doesn’t matter that much. We will soon have the technology to resurrect extinct species that we still have DNA collections of.
However, like anyone else I would be sad to see more species of megafauna become extinct, if only for the selfish reason that I may never get to see one. (I couldn’t really give a toss about insects or other creepy-crawlies that go missing though, to be honest).
Whales are magnificent animals and great to look at. Then again, so are cattle in their own way (especially their wild predecessors the Aurochs, which have recently been resurrected). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_Cattle I don’t see why they are deserving of different treatment.
So it is interesting that we are predisposed to want to conserve megafauna but a small drab brown moth is not well regarded (even if its DNA is utterly unique).
Kite fying – so if our own DNA is little evolved from the opportunistic hunter gatherers in African savanna woodlands – maybe we’re have a preference for seeing the range in good condition with a wide diversity of wildlife. Maybe we have an innate preference for seeing the ecosystem in good condition.
But of course our ancestors wouldn’t have evolved in consideration of large sea mammals or large metal boats with harpoons either.
Or maybe we’re just smart enough to philosophise and have cups of tea.
Maybes.. maybe that’s why we cut down forests, cos our ancesters preferred clearings to see the predators coming. Maybe those who climbed down from the trees most recently are those who don’t want them cut down.
yobbo, putting potential future technological resurrections aside for the moment and assuming that the whales are clearly at risk of going extinct, why does it matter enough to inform public policy?
You made an absolute statement that whether or not they’re endangered is the only relevant question. Perhaps a few other people like yourself want the opportunity of knowing they exist to be seen, but do most people think the same and does this justify public policies that reduce the enjoyment of people who want the whales dead? Why should people give a hoot whether or not they exist in the wild, esp people who are unlikely to ever see them? Why venture out into the uncomfortable wilderness to see megafauna when they’re more accessible and in more detail on a nature documentary in the comfort of home, whether or not they’re extinct? They look magnificent on a wide screen and sound fabulous with quality speakers & surround sound! Even better at imax. Few people get that kind of experience in real life, so why waste money on research, data analysis, meetings, conventions etc to try to keep the species alive if we already have plenty of info, video footage, photos, song-recordings, books, myths etc?
SO we could therefore eat as many as we can and convert whatever whales we have left to marine fertilser. It sounds like the sooner we get it over with and dispatch them all the bigger the fish populations will be.
Then without the whales eating all the plankton, and with the new fertiliser, the increase in oxygen-producing plankton would offset AGW.
So therefore we should eliminate the whales with a small nuclear weapon to stop global warming. I mean the whales have essentially been asking for it. Really what’s the point – they just float around and get in the way of shipping.
And they threaten global communications by crapping on submarine cables. They also compromise sonar explorations. Useless bags of blubber.
Phinxi? Surely it is not possible, in this cyberspace of meeting minds, that Phil and Thinxi have morphed?
Yes the stress of being on Jen’s blog has turned us into extinctionists. We now want to get it over and done with, unless anyone wants to talk us out of it? Google the “Young Ones” Video Nasty episode. Or the Monty Python Architect sketch.
Before you take that final walk down the corridor of rotating blades, how about your ‘people post’?
Oh no – it’s not us ! It’s the endangered species that are going down the chute.
My understanding has turned full circle!
Whales are miserable, blubbering creatures anyway. Constantly starving themselves then washing up on beaches, disturbing tourist holidays, expecting people to refloat them. How pathetic. Can’t even navigate properly. Genetically predisposed to mass suicide. And they present a danger to tourist boats – you never know when they’ll capsize one in the name of a good back rub.
There is no reason to preserve them, other than canned in brine. Even outspoken Yobbo can’t supply the ‘why’. Why should the general public, many of whom may never see one, care that whales as a species continue to live? Any links to human well-being (Phil’s guest post)?
Ah, Phinxi you’ve finally seen the light – Derek & Clive said it best:
http://www.phespirit.info/derekandclive/ad_nauseam_01.htm
CLIVE:
……Whales are ******* stupid. Can you mention one whale in the history of mankind that has had a record in the top ten? Can you? Can you mention one whale who’s written the equivalent of, er, ‘Othello’, Shakespeare, ‘Health & Efficiency’? They’ve produced nothing in the way of literature. All they’ve ******* produced is a load of other whales and all they eat is ******* plankton, and they call them intelligent. Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a lot of ******* plankton going in?
DEREK:
Yeah, I can imagine that.
CLIVE:
You’d like it, would you, just drifting around in the sea? And you can’t-, they’re such ***** they can’t even breathe underwater. They have to keep coming up the whole ******* time and spouting. Then some **** comes on telly and he says, “Oh, the whale is being wiped out by mankind, save the ***** whales.” Well! During the war, did we notice a lot of whales w-, rallying round and saying, “Save England!” I didn’t notice many down my part of the world.
DEREK:
Oh, ******* –
CLIVE:
I didn’t see whales coming up with Union Jacks saying, “We’ll fight the Boche”. No, they were doing ******* all …..
DEREK:
No, ’cause they …..
CLIVE:
….. swimming around the ***** sea sucking ***** plankton down!
yet another corker from you Peter!
My realisation was also informed by this valuable research: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45360
(Where’s Ian Mott, btw? He’d be so proud.)
and the whales rallied for Hitler!?!..
DEREK:
No, they were whales at the rallies. Hitler-, Hitler was talking to whales.
CLIVE:
Well, that doesn’t make them more intelligent ’cause, er, Hitler lost, didn’t he?
yet now secret weapon dolphins are allegedly working for the US military. Cetaceans are so fickle!
As they say, everyone always talks about the shipwrecked people that have been pushed back to shore by dolphins, but the ones who they push further out to sea don’t get a chance to tell their story.
yeah they’re too busy living happily ever after in Atlantis-beneath-the-sea.
Care to hazard an answer to my further q’s above Yobbo, ie more on the ‘why’?
Phinxi: I thought I already gave one possible reason why, and that is the purely selfish human reason of wishing to observe them for our own pleasure. Because they are “magnificent”, as conservationists are so fond of saying.
I am not a marine biologist so I cannot tell you what effect the extinction a species of whale would have on marine food chains and ecosystems, but that would be the most obvious scientific reason to want to preserve the species.
However, I believe it is the first reason that drives modern conservation efforts.
It should be noted however, that people who value whales more for their tastiness than for their beauty have even stronger incentives to ensure the survival of the species.